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Baltimore Sandwiches

A sandwich made with buttered bread, cucumber, horseradish mayonnaise, and sliced tongue, ham, or chicken.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 640 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baltimore Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bread into very thin slices.

  2. Lightly butter the slices.

  3. Trim the crusts.

  4. Peel the cucumber.

  5. Cut the cucumber into short, thin shreds.

  6. Cut the tongue, ham, or chicken into short, thin shreds.

  7. Whip the cream.

  8. Mix the whipped cream with horseradish and mayonnaise.

  9. Season the mixture carefully.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread a layer of the mixture on a slice of buttered bread.

  2. Add shredded cucumber and meat.

  3. Cover with more mayonnaise.

  4. Top with another slice of buttered bread.

  5. Cut the sandwich into desired shapes.

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. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Whipped, it lightens the horseradish-mayonnaise spread and adds a soft, creamy texture.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds fat and moisture, binding the spread and keeping the bread from drying out.
Cucumber
Contributes cool moisture and a crisp texture to the sandwich filling.
Horseradish
Provides sharp, pungent heat that cuts through the richness of the spread.
Tongue, ham, or chicken
Supplies the savoury meat filling that gives the sandwich its substance.

The step that matters

Whip the cream and season the mixture carefully. Whipped cream holds air and must be whipped only until soft peaks form, or it turns grainy or buttery. Horseradish is pungent and its heat fades with cooking, so seasoning should be tasted and adjusted at the end.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sauce, bread, horseradish, butter, ham):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sauce, bread, horseradish, butter, ham. 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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