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Sardine Savoy

A sandwich of sardines on toasted bread with a buttery egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Sardine Savoy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the toast

  1. Cut the bread into slices slightly larger than the sardines.

  2. Fry the bread until golden brown on both sides.

Make the sauce

  1. In a small saucepan, beat the eggs and mix in the butter, tarragon vinegar, mustard, salt, and Worcestershire sauce.

  2. Stir the mixture over low heat until it thickens, but do not let it boil.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place a sardine on each slice of bread and heat them in the oven.

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. Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  3. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when gently heated, thickening the sauce into a smooth, creamy emulsion.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky texture to the sauce as it melts into the egg mixture.
Bread
Provides a crisp, golden base that holds the sardines.
Sardines
Supply the main savory, oily flavour of the dish.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce over low heat. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures, but if the mixture boils the eggs scramble and curdle, so the sauce must be stirred gently over low heat and kept below boiling.

Swap the tarragon

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonthe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, egg, vinegar, mustard, sauce. 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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