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Stuffed Eggs

Hard-boiled eggs filled with a mixture of minced meat, mustard, lemon juice, and optional sardines or cheese, seasoned with herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffed Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare hard-boiled eggs and remove the yolks.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the yolks with minced meat, mustard, and lemon juice.

  2. Add minced sardines or grated cheese if desired.

  3. Season with chopped herbs.

Stuff and serve

  1. Stuff the mixture back into the egg whites.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Mustard + cheesetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Their rich, creamy texture forms the body of the filling.
Minced meat
Adds savory flavor and substance to the yolk filling.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the yolks.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the filling in place of vinegar.

The step that matters

Mix the yolks with the meat and seasonings. The yolks must be broken down smooth so the filling holds together and spreads evenly. Lumps or uneven mixing leave pockets of dry or overly rich bites, and the filling can be piped or spooned back into the whites more cleanly when fully blended.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, ham, lemon, vinegar, cheese, parsley):

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, ham, lemon, vinegar, cheese, parsley. 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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