Name: Sardine Sandwich
Ingredients: 1 tin sardines; 2 slices bread; butter; 2 tablespoons finely minced olives; pepper to taste; 1 small tomato, very thinly sliced; 1 teaspoon vinegar

Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Sardine Sandwich

Ingredients

Directions

Remove sardines from the tin and remove the tails.
Halve the sardines and lay them between the slices of buttered bread.
Add the minced olives and sprinkle with pepper.
Top with the thinly sliced tomatoes and drizzle with vinegar.

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.

Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Bread + olivetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,091 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sardines: Provide the main savoury, oily filling that forms the body of the sandwich.
Bread: Gives structure and holds the filling together between its slices.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture to the bread, so it doesn't soak up the filling.
Olives: Add salty, briny flavour that contrasts with the rich sardines.
Tomato: Adds moisture and fresh, slightly sweet acidity to balance the oily fish.
Vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the sardines.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, olive, pepper, vinegar):

Capsicumfits about as well
Tomatothe original
Mustardfits less well
Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, olive, pepper, vinegar. 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.