Name: Eggs a LA Creme
Ingredients: 3 eggs; equal amount of small thin pieces of chicken; equal amount of small thin pieces of ham; equal amount of small thin pieces of salmon; equal amount of small thin pieces of lobster; salt and pepper to taste; 1 cup of cream sauce

Why it works: Egg and salmon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,174 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

3 eggs
equal amount of small thin pieces of chicken
equal amount of small thin pieces of ham
equal amount of small thin pieces of salmon
equal amount of small thin pieces of lobster
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup of cream sauce

Directions

Prepare

Boil the eggs for 20 minutes.
Cut a slice off each end and halve the eggs crosswise.
Remove the yolks and slice them thinly.

Fill and serve

Mix the yolks with equal amounts of chicken, ham, salmon, and lobster.
Season the mixture with salt and pepper to taste.
Fill the egg white cups with the mixture.
Place the cups on a shallow dish and pour the cream sauce around them, nearly to the tops.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Egg + salmontop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together3,174 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Lobster + creamtop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,050 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Lobster + saucetop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Chicken + hamtop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,497 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Salmon + creamtop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,401 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Provide the white cups for the filling and the yolks that are mixed into it.
Cream sauce: Adds moisture and richness around the cups, binding the dish together.
Chicken: Adds savory body and a firm, meaty bite to the filling.
Ham: Adds salty, savory flavor to the filling.
Salmon: Adds rich flavor and a tender texture to the filling.
Lobster: Adds sweet, delicate seafood flavor and texture to the filling.

“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.