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Stuffed Eggs with Ham

Hard-boiled eggs filled with a mixture of yolks, ham, salt, and pepper, topped with white sauce and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Stuffed Eggs with Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs for 20 minutes.

  2. Place them in cold water, then remove the shells and cut in half.

  3. Trim a small piece off the ends so they stand firm on the dish.

Stuff and serve

  1. Remove the yolks and mix with salt, pepper, and chopped ham or tongue.

  2. Replace the yolk mixture in the egg halves.

  3. Pour white sauce over the stuffed eggs and garnish with parsley.

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. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Ham + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Form the base and, as yolks, the creamy filling that holds the ham flavour.
Chopped ham or tongue
Adds savoury, meaty flavour and substance to the yolk filling.
White sauce
Adds moisture and richness over the stuffed eggs.

The step that matters

Boil the eggs for 20 minutes. Boiling long enough sets the yolks fully firm so they mix and pipe cleanly. Placing the eggs in cold water afterward helps the shells peel more easily and stops the yolks from darkening.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, ham, sauce. 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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