Name: Stuffed Eggs a LA Russe
Ingredients: 6 hard-boiled eggs; caviar; mayonnaise; parsley, chopped; olive oil; vinegar; coarse sea salt; black pepper; even-sized tomatoes

Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Stuffed Eggs a LA Russe

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the shells from the hard-boiled eggs and cut them in half crossways.
Scoop out the yolks and mix them with mayonnaise.
Fill the empty egg halves with caviar and cover with the yolk-mayonnaise mixture.
Slice the tomatoes and season with chopped parsley, olive oil, vinegar, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.
Serve the stuffed eggs on the tomato slices and garnish with additional 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.

Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,398 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

Swap the tomato

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

Capsicumfits better
Cucumberfits better
Shallotfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, caviar, parsley, olive, vinegar, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.