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Scrambled Eggs

A quick egg dish cooked in butter, seasoned with salt and pepper, optionally garnished with parsley, herbs, ham, or dried beef.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scrambled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl or deep dish.

  2. Heat the butter in a frying pan over medium heat until hot.

Cook

  1. Pour the eggs into the pan and stir from the bottom for about 3 minutes until they coagulate.

  2. Season with salt and pepper while cooking.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish or toasted bread, adding optional ingredients if desired.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  4. Ham + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Coagulate when heated to set the mixture into soft, tender curds.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and keeps the eggs from sticking to the pan.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs from the bottom over medium heat. Eggs set quickly from the outside in. Stirring the bottom keeps curds forming gently and prevents dry, rubbery overcooking on contact with the pan.

“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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