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Dressing for Sandwiches

A savory dressing made with sweet oil, mustard, butter, pepper, salt, egg yolk, and chopped meats, spread on bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Dressing for Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine sweet oil, mixed mustard, butter, red pepper, salt, and egg yolk. Beat until smooth and keep cool.

  2. Finely chop the tongue, ham, and cold chicken if using.

Assemble

  1. Spread the dressing on sliced bread, then add the chopped meat.

  2. Press the slices together and trim the edges.

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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Mustard + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Helps emulsify the oil, mustard and butter into a smooth, stable dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and body to the dressing.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp flavour that cuts through the richness of the butter and meat.
Sweet oil
Carries flavour and keeps the dressing smooth and spreadable.

The step that matters

Beat the dressing until smooth. The egg yolk, oil, mustard and butter only combine into a smooth, stable emulsion if they are beaten together thoroughly. Keeping it cool helps the butter stay firm and the emulsion hold, so the dressing spreads evenly without separating.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

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

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