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Bread

Tongue Sandwich

A sandwich made with sliced cooked tongue, buttered bread, and optional seasonings and toppings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Tongue Sandwich

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the tongue into thin slices.

  2. Spread butter on slices of bread.

Assemble

  1. Layer the tongue slices between the bread.

  2. If using salt tongue, add mustard and black pepper.

  3. If using smoked or fresh tongue, add a little coarse sea salt, mustard, and black pepper.

  4. Optionally, add minced mustard greens, ham, or a thin layer of sausage.

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

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

  2. Bread + hamtop 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 + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

  5. Bread + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
Provides the main meaty filling and rich texture of the sandwich.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture to the bread and carries flavour into the sandwich.
Bread
Gives structure and holds the filling together.
Mustard
Adds sharp acidity and aroma that cut through the richness of the tongue.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, pepper, ham):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper, 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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