Name: Salad, Stuffed Eggs for
Ingredients: 3 anchovies; 6 eggs; 2 tablespoons fresh butter; ¼ teaspoon powdered mace; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; Lettuce hearts; Salad cream (for serving)

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 ↓

Salad, Stuffed Eggs for

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the anchovies

Remove the skin and bones from the anchovies and pound the flesh in a mortar.
Press the anchovy paste through a sieve.

Make the filling

Boil the eggs for 15 minutes, then place them in cold water.
Peel the eggs and cut them in half lengthwise.
Remove the hard yolks and place them in a mortar with the butter, anchovy paste, mace, and cayenne.
Pound the mixture to a smooth paste.

Assemble and serve

Fill the egg halves with the mixture and reassemble them.
Arrange the stuffed eggs on a dish and surround with lettuce hearts.
Serve salad cream on the side.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,009 recipes

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Eggs: Provide the yolks that are mashed into the filling and the whites that hold it.
Anchovies: Add a salty, savoury depth to the yolk filling.
Fresh butter: Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable texture to the filling.

Swap the mace

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

Tarragonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Parsleyfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, pepper, lettuce, 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.