Name: Stuffed Eggs
Ingredients: 6 hard-cooked eggs; 1 tablespoon butter, melted; Salt and pepper to taste; Potted meat or poultry (optional, ½ as much as yolks); Salmon or other delicate fish (optional, same bulk as yolks); Grated cheese (optional, about 1 tablespoon for every 3 yolks); Oil, mustard, vinegar, and parsley to taste

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stuffed Eggs

Ingredients

6 hard-cooked eggs
1 tablespoon butter, melted
Salt and pepper to taste
Potted meat or poultry (optional, ½ as much as yolks)
Salmon or other delicate fish (optional, same bulk as yolks)
Grated cheese (optional, about 1 tablespoon for every 3 yolks)
Oil, mustard, vinegar, and parsley to taste

Directions

Prepare

Cut the hard-cooked eggs lengthwise or crosswise and remove the yolks.
Mash the yolks and season with butter, salt, and pepper.
If desired, mix in potted meat, fish, cheese, or other seasonings.

Fill and serve

Mould the mixture into balls and replace them in the egg whites, or fill the whites evenly and place the two sides together.
Serve hot with white sauce or cold without sauce.

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.

Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,805 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cheese + vinegartop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together922 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-cooked eggs: Provide the whites that hold the filling and the yolks that form the creamy base.
Egg yolks: Give the filling its rich, creamy texture and body when mashed with fat.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, making the mashed yolk filling smooth and soft.
Potted meat or poultry: Adds savoury flavour and extra body to the filling when used.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, pepper, meat, salmon, cheese, vinegar):

Mustardthe original
Capsicumfits about as well
Asparagusfits about as well
Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, pepper, meat, salmon, cheese, vinegar. 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.