Name: Eggs a LA Bonne Femme
Ingredients: 6 large eggs; cold chicken, diced; ham, diced; boiled beetroot, diced; lettuce, for garnish

Why it works: Egg and ham match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 4,516 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

Boil the eggs for 10 minutes. Once cool, carefully remove the shells.
Cut each egg in half and remove the yolks. Trim the pointed tip of the whites so they can stand flat.

Fill and serve

Mix the diced chicken, ham, beetroot, and yolks. Fill the egg whites with this mixture, piling it high in the center.
Arrange neatly cut lettuce on a dish and place the filled eggs among it.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Egg + hamtop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together4,516 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
Beetroot + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together678 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Chicken + hamtop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,497 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Chicken + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together1,420 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Chicken + beetroottop 14% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together292 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Whites provide the structure that holds the filling, and yolks add richness to the mixture.
Cold chicken: Adds savory body and substance to the filling.
Ham: Adds salty, savory flavor to the filling.
Boiled beetroot: Adds color, earthy sweetness and moisture to the filling.

Flavor stand-ins for the beetroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, chicken, ham, lettuce):

Asparagusbetter flavor fit
Mustardbetter flavor fit
Leekbetter flavor fit
Beetrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, chicken, ham, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.