Name: Stuffed Eggs
Ingredients: 6 hard boiled eggs; 2 tablespoons melted butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 teaspoon mustard

Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Eggs

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Cut the hard boiled eggs in half lengthwise and remove the yolks.
Mash the yolks with a fork and mix in melted butter, salt, pepper, and mustard.

Stuff and wrap

Fill the egg whites with the yolk mixture and press the halves together.
Wrap the stuffed eggs in tissue paper.

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.

Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,003 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,210 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: The whites form a shell that holds the filling, and the yolks become the creamy base.
Butter: Adds fat that makes the mashed yolk filling smooth and rich.
Mustard: Adds sharp flavor that balances the richness of the yolks.