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Savory Sandwiches

A sandwich made with a paste of chopped chicken, minced ham, butter, mace, onion juice, and oyster liquor, spread between Graham bread slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Savory Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped chicken, minced ham, butter, mace, and onion juice into a soft paste.

  2. Add oyster liquor as needed to achieve the right consistency.

  3. Place the mixture in a saucepan over boiling water and stir until hot.

  4. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture between slices of Graham 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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the filling, giving it substance and a meaty texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the chicken and ham bind into a smooth paste.
Boiled ham
Contributes salty, savory flavor to the chicken filling.
Oyster liquor
Adds moisture and briny flavor to loosen the paste to the right consistency.

The step that matters

Heating over boiling water. Gentle indirect heat warms the paste evenly without scorching the butter or drying the chicken. Stirring keeps it from sticking and heating unevenly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, butter, onion, oyster, 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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