Skip to main content
Main

Stuffed Eggs

Hard-boiled eggs filled with a seasoned yolk mixture served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the eggs for 20 minutes.

  2. Cut the eggs in half and remove the yolks.

  3. In a bowl, combine the yolks, olive oil, vinegar, dry mustard, salt, cayenne pepper, and minced foam. Mix until it forms a paste.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill each egg white half with the yolk mixture.

  2. Place the stuffed eggs on lettuce leaves and serve with boiled dressing.

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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide the white halves that hold the filling and the yolks that form the paste.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness to the yolk mixture, giving it a smoother texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the rich yolk filling.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the richness of the yolks.

The step that matters

Mix until it forms a paste. Yolks must be mashed fully with the oil and vinegar so the filling is smooth. Lumps leave dry pockets and uneven texture, and the paste sets the consistency of the filling.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, olive, vinegar, mustard, pepper, cream):

  1. Horseradishfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, vinegar, mustard, 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.

More stuffed eggs recipes

Anchovy 8Mushroom 4Cheese 3Spinach 3 See all 127 →

You might also like

Creamy Lettuce SoupCreamy Lettuce Soup8 recipesLettuce SoupLettuce Soup8 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes