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Deviled Eggs

A chilled dish of egg whites filled with a seasoned yolk mixture, served on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Deviled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the hard-boiled eggs in half and remove the yolks.

  2. In a bowl, mash the yolks with butter, mustard, lemon juice or vinegar, sugar, salt, and cayenne pepper until smooth.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the egg whites with the yolk mixture.

  2. Chill the deviled eggs before serving on lettuce leaves, garnished with 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.

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

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

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Form the creamy filling that gives the deviled eggs their body and richness.
Butter
Adds fat to the yolk filling, making it smoother and richer in texture.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the richness of the yolks.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the filling and cuts through its richness.
Sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness that balances the acidity and mustard.

The step that matters

Mash the yolks until smooth. Yolks mashed with fat and acid form a smooth emulsion; lumps left behind stay grainy and the filling separates less evenly, so mash thoroughly before piping or spooning.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, mustard, lemon, sugar, pepper, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, mustard, lemon, sugar, pepper, parsley. 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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