Name: Egg Sandwich
Ingredients: 6 hard boiled eggs; cooked dressing; bread; lettuce

Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Egg Sandwich

Ingredients

6 hard boiled eggs
cooked dressing
bread
lettuce

Directions

Make the filling

Run the yolks and whites of the hard boiled eggs through a ricer.
Mix the riced eggs with the cooked dressing.

Assemble

Spread the egg mixture on each piece of bread.
Place lettuce between the slices to assemble the sandwich.

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.

Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Bread + lettucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together602 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,301 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard boiled eggs: Provide the main body of the filling, which is made fine by ricing.
Cooked dressing: Adds moisture and richness, binding the riced egg into a spreadable mixture.
Bread: Provides the structure that holds the filling and lettuce together.
Lettuce: Adds a crisp, fresh texture that contrasts with the soft egg filling.