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Scrambled Eggs

Scrambled eggs cooked in butter, seasoned with pepper and salt, optionally garnished with parsley, herbs, ham, or dried beef.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scrambled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl or deep dish.

  2. Heat a piece of butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  3. When the butter is hot, pour in the eggs.

Cook and serve

  1. Stir the eggs from the bottom for about 3 minutes, until they are set.

  2. Season with pepper and salt while cooking.

  3. Serve the scrambled eggs in a hot dish or on toasted bread.

  4. Add chopped parsley, minced herbs, cooked ham, or chipped dried beef if desired.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  4. Ham + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into soft curds that give the scrambled eggs their structure and body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps keep the eggs from sticking to the pan.

The step that matters

Stir the eggs from the bottom while they set. Eggs set from contact with the hot pan, so stirring from the bottom keeps curds moving and prevents a dry, rubbery layer on the base.

“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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