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Savoury Eggs

A fried onion and egg mixture with milk, cheese, and herbs, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Savoury Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onion

  1. Parboil, slice, and fry the onion until nearly brown.

Make the egg mixture

  1. Add the milk and sliced hard-boiled eggs, stirring over low heat for 2-3 minutes.

  2. Beat the yolks of the 2 eggs with parsley, cheese, pepper, and salt.

  3. Add the mixture to the pan and stir over low heat for 7-8 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Squeeze in lemon juice and serve very hot.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a soft, creamy mass as the yolks cook, thickening the dish.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, keeping the eggs tender as they heat.
Onion
Browned slices add sweetness and savory depth to the dish.
Grated cheese
Melts into the eggs, adding fat, richness and savory flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds a bright acidity that balances the richness of the eggs and cheese.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture over low heat. Egg proteins set quickly and turn grainy or curdled if overheated, so gentle low heat keeps the mixture smooth and creamy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, parsley, cheese, pepper, lemon):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, parsley, cheese, pepper, lemon. 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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