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Piquant Sandwiches

A sandwich made with sliced bread, butter, minced hard‑boiled eggs, chopped green pickles, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. In a bowl, mix the minced hard-boiled eggs with the chopped green pickle.

  2. Season the mixture with salt and pepper, then work in a little butter.

Assemble the sandwiches

  1. Cut the bread into very thin slices and lightly butter one side of each slice.

  2. Spread the filling on the unbuttered side of a slice of bread.

  3. Top with another slice of bread, buttered side down, and cut into squares or 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 main body of the filling, setting into a soft, spreadable texture.
Sharp green pickle
Adds acidity and sharp flavour that cuts through the richness of the eggs and butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and keeping the filling moist and smooth.
Bread
Forms the thin structure that holds the filling and gives the sandwich its body.

The step that matters

Work in the butter with the seasoned filling. Mixing the butter in while the egg and pickle are still well combined helps the filling become smooth and spreadable rather than dry or crumbly, and seasoning first lets the salt distribute evenly through the mixture.

“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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