Name: Tongue Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 lb cold boiled tongue; 1 tablespoon mustard; 1 hard-boiled egg yolk, mashed; 1 oz butter; juice of 1 lemon; thin slices of bread

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Grate the cold boiled tongue.
Mix the grated tongue with mustard, mashed egg yolk, butter, and lemon juice.
Spread the mixture on 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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,816 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Mustard + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,484 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled tongue: Forms the bulk of the filling and provides the meaty base of the sandwich.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping the filling spread smoothly and feel moist.
Hard-boiled egg yolk: Binds the grated meat and adds a rich, creamy texture to the filling.
Mustard: Adds sharp flavor that cuts through the richness of the fat and meat.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the filling.