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Sardine Sandwiches

A sandwich of sardines, lemon, lettuce, and buttered bread.

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

Sardine Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sardines

  1. Remove sardines from the box, keeping as little oil as possible.

  2. Place sardines in a shallow bowl and pour hot water over them to remove oil; then pour off the water.

  3. Remove the bone and skin from the sardines, then break the meat into fine pieces with a fork.

Make the filling

  1. Grate the rind of the lemon over the sardines.

  2. Cut the lettuce into fine threads using a silver knife.

  3. Add the lettuce and lemon juice to the sardines, mixing well with a fork.

Assemble

  1. Spread the sardine mixture between slices of buttered 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. Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Lettuce + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Lemon + breadtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 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

Sardines
Provide the main savoury filling and rich flavour of the sandwich.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the oily fish.
Lettuce
Adds crisp texture and fresh moisture to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the bread and helps keep it from soaking up the filling.
Bread
Gives the sandwich its structure and holds the filling together.

The step that matters

Pouring off the hot water over the sardines. Rinsing the sardines in hot water removes excess oil, which keeps the filling from tasting greasy and stops the bread from becoming soggy.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, butter, 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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