Name: Stuffed Eggs
Ingredients: 6 hard-boiled eggs; 1 tablespoon butter; 2 tablespoons minced old ham; salt to taste; pepper to taste; 1 teaspoon mustard; 1 tablespoon chopped onion

Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

Boil and peel the eggs, then cut them in half.
Remove the yolks and cream them in a bowl.

Make the filling

Add butter, minced ham, salt, pepper, mustard, and chopped onion to the yolks.
Mix well and fill the egg whites with the yolk mixture.

Serve

Arrange the stuffed eggs on a dish or platter.

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.

Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together747 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: The yolks form the creamy base of the filling, and the whites hold it.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, making the yolk mixture smooth and moist.
Minced old ham: Contributes salty, savory flavor to the yolk filling.
Mustard: Adds sharp, tangy flavor that balances the richness of the yolks.