Name: Mixed Sandwiches
Ingredients: ½ cup melted butter; 1 tablespoon salad oil; 1 tablespoon mustard; 2 hard boiled eggs; White pepper to taste; Equal quantities of ham, tongue, and chicken

Why it works: Mustard and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,192 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Mixed Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Chop equal quantities of ham, tongue, and chicken finely.
In a bowl, mix the chopped meat with melted butter, salad oil, mustard, egg yolks, and white pepper.
Spread the mixture on thinly buttered bread, removing the crusts.

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.

Mustard + chickentop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,192 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Ham + chickentop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,497 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Mustard + hamtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together747 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Melted butter: Adds richness and moisture, helping the filling feel smooth and savoury.
Hard boiled eggs: Egg yolks add richness and help bind the meat into a spreadable mixture.
Salad oil: Adds fat and moisture, keeping the chopped meat smooth and easy to spread.
Mustard: Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the meat and fat.
Chicken: Provides the mild, tender meat base of the filling.
Ham: Contributes savoury, salty flavour to the filling.

Swap the white pepper

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

Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
Thymefits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mustard, egg, ham, chicken. 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.