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Tongue Sandwiches

A sandwich made with finely chopped tongue, ham, butter, oil, mustard, paprika, and egg yolk spread between bread slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped tongue and ham.

  2. Stir in melted butter, salad oil, mustard, and paprika until smooth.

  3. Place the mixture in a saucepan over boiling water and heat thoroughly.

  4. Remove from heat and beat in the egg yolk.

  5. Let the mixture cool completely.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture between thin slices of bread.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + breadtop 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 body and texture of the filling.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable moisture to the filling.
Salad oil
Keeps the filling moist and smooth as it cools.
Egg yolk
Beaten in off the heat, it thickens and binds the filling as it cools.

The step that matters

Beat in the egg yolk off the heat. Egg yolk thickens when heated, so adding it over direct heat can scramble it into lumps. Removing the mixture from heat first lets the yolk blend in smoothly and set the filling gently.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, egg, bread. 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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