Name: Egg-baskets
Ingredients: 6 hard-boiled eggs; 1 cup minced cold meat (ham, veal, or poultry), well seasoned; 1 cup drawn butter or strained gravy; chopped parsley

Why it works: Butter and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Egg-baskets

Ingredients

6 hard-boiled eggs
1 cup minced cold meat (ham, veal, or poultry), well seasoned
1 cup drawn butter or strained gravy
chopped parsley

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the eggs

Cut the hard-boiled eggs in half and remove the yolks.
Trim the bottom of each egg half so it stands upright.

Fill and bake

Mash the yolks into a powder and mix with the minced meat to form small pellets.
Place one pellet in each egg half and arrange them in a dish.
Heat the drawn butter or gravy with chopped parsley and pour it over the egg-baskets.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 5 minutes to heat the eggs.
For added flavor, cut stale bread into rounds, scoop out a hollow, toast and butter them, and place one under each egg-basket before pouring the gravy.

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.

Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Meat + parsleytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,040 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs: Form the edible baskets that hold the filling and give the dish its structure.
Minced cold meat: Supplies savory flavor and a firm, rich filling once bound with the yolks.
Drawn butter or strained gravy: Adds moisture and richness, coating the eggs and carrying the flavor.
Egg yolks: Bind with the meat into a cohesive filling, adding richness and a creamy texture.