Skip to main content
Main

Scrambled Eggs

A quick egg dish cooked with butter, salt, pepper, and optional vegetables or meats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,331 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scrambled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the eggs

  1. Break the eggs into a dish without beating them.

  2. Heat the butter in a saucepan until hot.

  3. Pour the eggs into the saucepan and stir constantly on one side over high heat.

  4. Cook for about three minutes until just set.

Season and serve

  1. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and serve alone or on toasted, buttered bread.

Variations

  1. For variations, mix in peas, asparagus tips, diced tomato, or minced meat or fish before cooking.

  2. If using, pour gravy over the eggs just before cooking.

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 + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  2. Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Egg + peastop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Proteins set as they heat, forming soft curds that give the scrambled texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavour, and keeps the eggs from sticking to the pan.

The step that matters

Cook for about three minutes until just set. Egg proteins firm up quickly with heat, and residual heat keeps cooking them after they leave the pan. Removing the eggs while still slightly glossy keeps them soft and moist rather than dry and rubbery.

Swap the peas

The recipe marks peas as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, pepper):

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Peasthe original
  4. Pecansfits about as well

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

More scrambled eggs recipes

Cheese 16on Toast 16with Tomatoes 16with Ham 11with Asparagus 10with Mushrooms 10 See all 310 →

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes