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Curried Eggs

Hard-boiled eggs simmered in a butter and curry sauce with onions, broth, cream, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Curried Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs hard, then set aside to cool.

Make the curry sauce

  1. In a saucepan, mix the butter and curry powder over medium heat for a few minutes.

  2. Add the minced onions and fry gently until soft.

  3. Gradually pour in the broth or gravy and simmer until reduced to pulp.

  4. Mix the cream with the flour, stir into the curry, and simmer until the raw taste is gone.

Finish and serve

  1. Slice the eggs into half-inch pieces, heat them in the sauce without boiling, and serve hot.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Onion + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together858 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Form the main body of the dish and provide protein-rich texture when hard-boiled.
Butter
Carries the curry powder and adds richness and fat to the sauce.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavour of the dish.
Onions
Soften during frying and add sweetness and body to the sauce.
Broth or gravy
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, reduced to concentrate its flavour.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it coats the eggs.

The step that matters

Simmer the flour and cream until the raw taste is gone. Uncooked flour tastes pasty and raw. Simmering long enough cooks the starch so it thickens smoothly and the sauce tastes clean. Heating the eggs without boiling keeps the whites tender and prevents the sauce from breaking or toughening.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, cream, wheat. 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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