Why it works: Egg and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,301 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓
Salad Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the eggs hard, turning them several times to prevent the yolks from settling.
When cool, peel off the shells and cut each egg in half with a sharp knife.
Remove the yolks and mash them smooth.
Mix the mashed yolks with salad dressing, ensuring the mixture is not too thin.
Return the yolk mixture into the egg whites and place the halves together neatly.
Lay each egg in a fresh lettuce leaf.
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.
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Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,301 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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