Name: Chicken Sandwiches
Ingredients: cooked chicken, pounded to a paste; 2 hard-boiled egg yolks; 2 tablespoons cream; 2 tablespoons butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; a few drops of onion juice

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Pound the cooked chicken to a paste.
In a bowl, mix the chicken paste with the egg yolks, cream, and butter until well combined.
Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and onion juice.

Assemble

Spread the mixture on bread to make delicious sandwiches.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,814 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken: Forms the main body of the filling, pounded to a paste for a smooth spread.
Hard-boiled egg yolks: Add richness and a creamy, binding texture to the chicken paste.
Cream: Adds moisture and softness, making the filling easier to spread.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, cream, butter, pepper):

Potatofits better
Capsicumfits about as well
Asparagusfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, cream, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.