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Deviled Eggs

Deviled eggs are hard‑boiled eggs filled with a seasoned yolk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Deviled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the eggs

  1. Place the eggs in a kettle of boiling water.

  2. Remove from heat and let stand for 40 to 45 minutes.

  3. Plunge the eggs into cold water to prevent discoloration.

  4. Shell the eggs carefully and cut them lengthwise.

Fill and serve

  1. Remove the yolks and crumble them finely.

  2. Add salt, pepper, and melted butter to the yolks.

  3. If desired, mix in finely chopped cold boiled ham.

  4. Fill the egg whites with the yolk mixture.

  5. Serve cold on lettuce leaves.

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. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  2. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide the yolk filling and the white shells that hold it.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, making the crumbled yolk mixture smooth and creamy.

The step that matters

Plunge the eggs into cold water. Cooling the eggs quickly stops residual heat from cooking them further, which prevents the green-gray ring that forms between yolk and white and keeps the yolks bright and easy to crumble.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, butter, ham. 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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