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Scrambled Eggs

Scrambled eggs cooked with butter, salt, pepper, optional vegetables, meats, gravy, sweet cream, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scrambled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Heat the butter in a saucepan until hot.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour in the eggs and stir constantly, cooking for about 3 minutes.

  2. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  3. For variations, mix in peas, asparagus tips, or leftover meat before cooking.

  4. If using, pour chicken gravy over the eggs just before cooking for added flavor.

  5. For a richer dish, add sweet cream and stock to the eggs before scrambling.

  6. Serve alone or on toasted, buttered bread.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into soft curds that form the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and keeps the eggs from sticking to the pan.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, making the scrambled eggs softer and creamier.

The step that matters

Stir constantly over heat. Eggs cook quickly, and constant stirring keeps curds small and tender. If left still, the proteins set in large lumps and turn 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, cream):

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

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

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