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Savoury Eggs

Hard‑boiled eggs filled with a seasoned yolk mixture and served on a salad.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Savoury Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs until hard, then remove the shells and let them cool.

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

Fill and serve

  1. Pound the yolks until smooth, mixing in the chopped parsley, tomato purée, salt, and pepper.

  2. Slice a small piece off the tops of the egg whites so they can stand upright.

  3. Fill the egg whites with the yolk mixture and place a sprig of parsley in the center of each.

  4. Serve on a bed of small salad.

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

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  4. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  5. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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
Whites give the set structure that holds the filling, and yolks supply richness and a creamy texture.
Tomato purée
Adds colour and a tangy, slightly sweet flavour that cuts the richness of the yolks.
Chopped parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma and a little colour to the yolk filling.

The step that matters

Pound the yolks until smooth. Breaking the yolks down fully and mixing them evenly with the other seasonings gives a smooth, uniform filling. Lumps of dry yolk or unevenly distributed seasoning spoil the texture and taste of each bite.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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