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Cueried Eggs

A curry-flavored sauce with onions, stock, and hard-boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cueried Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry sauce

  1. In a pan, melt the butter over low heat and fry the sliced onion until tender, without browning.

  2. Add the curry powder and stock, and let it simmer until the onion is soft.

  3. In a bowl, mix the cornstarch with the cream, then stir this mixture into the stock and onion.

  4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the quartered hard-boiled eggs, and season with salt and pepper.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Onion
Softens into a sweet base that carries the curry flavour through the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spice aroma and flavour of the dish.
Cornstarch
Thickens the stock and cream into a smooth, coating sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the sauce.
Hard-boiled eggs
Form the substance of the dish, soaking up the sauce's flavour.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil, then simmer gently. Cornstarch must reach a boil to fully thicken the sauce, but the cream can separate or turn grainy if it boils hard for long. Simmering gently after the boil keeps the sauce smooth and glossy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, egg, 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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