Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Egg Sandwiches
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Boil the eggs for 30 minutes.
Mash the boiled eggs and season with salt, butter, and a little pepper.
Assemble the sandwiches
Spread butter on the slices of bread.
Spread the egg mixture on half of the buttered bread slices.
Fold the other half of the bread over the egg mixture.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Form the main filling, giving the mashed mixture body and richness.
- Butter
- Adds fat and flavour to the filling and coats the bread for a richer taste.
- Bread
- Forms the outer layers and holds the mashed egg filling in place.
The step that matters
Boil the eggs for 30 minutes. Boiling long enough sets the yolks fully firm so they mash evenly. Overcooking can leave a greyish-green ring around the yolk, caused by a reaction between sulfur in the white and iron in the yolk, and makes the filling dry.
“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.
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