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Eggs Like Tripe

Eggs with pickled onions simmered in a butter, flour, stock, and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Eggs Like Tripe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Peel the small pickling onions.

Make the sauce and onions

  1. Fry the onions gently in butter over low heat.

  2. Dust the onions with flour.

  3. Moisten the mixture with equal parts stock and cream.

  4. Add salt and pepper, and stew until the onions are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the sliced eggs and warm them through.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Form the main body of the dish and absorb the creamy sauce as they warm.
Butter
Fat that gently cooks the onions and carries flavour into the dish.
Flour
Thickens the stock and cream into a smooth, coating sauce around the onions.
Stock
Liquid base that moistens the mixture and adds savoury depth.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sauce and giving it a silky texture.

The step that matters

Dust the onions with flour. Flour must be cooked briefly in the butter before liquid is added, or it stays floury. Adding the stock and cream too early can leave lumps, so the flour should coat the onions evenly first.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

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