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Tartlets of Eggs with Curry

Tartlets filled with a curry‑flavored egg mixture and topped with strained yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tartlets of Eggs with Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Separate the yolks from the whites of the hard boiled eggs.

  2. Cut the whites into small cubes and force the yolks through a coarse strainer.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, cook the butter with the chopped onion until yellow.

  2. Add the cornstarch, curry powder, salt, and paprika, stirring to combine.

  3. Gradually pour in the scalded milk while stirring constantly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fold in the egg whites and fill individual pastry cases with the mixture.

  2. Sprinkle the strained yolks on top before serving.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Fat that cooks the onion and carries the curry flavour into the sauce.
Cornstarch
Thickens the scalded milk into a smooth, spoonable filling as it heats.
Scalded milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it body and creaminess once thickened.
Hard boiled eggs
Provide the main filling texture, with whites in cubes and yolks as a crumbly topping.

The step that matters

Gradually pour in the scalded milk while stirring constantly. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the cornstarch dispersed so it thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, milk. 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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