Name: Deviled Egg Fingers
Ingredients: 1 hard-boiled egg, finely chopped; 2 teaspoons finely chopped ham or other cold meat; 1 teaspoon grated cheese (Edam is best); 2 teaspoons lemon juice; a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper; mustard to taste; slices of bread

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Deviled Egg Fingers

Ingredients

1 hard-boiled egg, finely chopped
2 teaspoons finely chopped ham or other cold meat
1 teaspoon grated cheese (Edam is best)
2 teaspoons lemon juice
a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper
mustard to taste
slices of bread

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, combine the chopped hard-boiled egg, ham, cheese, lemon juice, cayenne, and mustard, and mix until well combined.
Cut the bread into strips similar to those used for sponge cake.

Assemble and serve

Spread the egg mixture onto the bread strips.
Serve immediately.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg: Forms the creamy, savoury filling that gives the fingers their body.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich egg and cheese flavour.
Cheese: Adds salty, savoury flavour and richness to the filling.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, ham, cheese, pepper, mustard, bread):

Figfits about as well
Lemonthe original
Plumfits less well
Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, ham, cheese, pepper, mustard, bread. 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.