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Piquant Sandwiches

A sandwich of buttered bread with a mixture of hard‑boiled eggs, green pickles, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Piquant Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the bread very thin and lightly butter it on the loaf.

  2. Mix the finely minced hard-boiled eggs with the chopped sharp green pickle.

  3. Season the mixture with salt and pepper to taste, then work in a little butter.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the filling on a slice of bread, then place another buttered slice on top, buttered side down.

  2. Cut the sandwiches into squares and triangles.

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 + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 bulk and creamy body of the filling.
Sharp green pickle
Adds acidity and a sharp bite that cuts the richness of the eggs.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and moistens the filling and bread.
Bread
Provides the structure that holds the filling in place.

The step that matters

Working the butter into the filling. Adding butter to the filling while it is seasoned helps it blend into a smooth, spreadable mix; adding it cold or unevenly can leave greasy pockets and a crumbly texture.

“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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