Skip to main content
Main

Devilled Eggs

Hard‑boiled eggs topped with a creamy mustard‑ketchup sauce and ham, seasoned with cayenne and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Devilled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the eggs

  1. Break the eggs into a saucepan and fry until the whites are firm, being careful not to break the yolks.

  2. Trim the eggs nicely and place them on a hot dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate saucepan, melt the butter and add the cream, cayenne, salt, French mustard, English mustard, tomato ketchup, and raw egg yolks.

  2. Stir the sauce over heat until it thickens.

  3. Add the minced ham and chopped green pepper, then serve over the fried eggs.

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 + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 recipes

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

  5. Cream + ketchuptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 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
Whites set into a firm base while the yolks stay intact for the sauce.
Raw egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat and set, giving it a creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavour to the sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, loosening the sauce for a smooth texture.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that gives the sauce a tangy note.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce over heat until it thickens. Raw egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the sauce gets too hot the yolks can scramble and turn grainy. Gentle, constant stirring keeps it smooth.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, cream, pepper, mustard, ketchup, ham):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, cream, pepper, mustard, ketchup, ham. 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 deviled eggs recipes

on Toast 3 See all 151 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes