Skip to main content
Main

Curried Eggs

Eggs simmered in a curry-flavored gravy served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Curried Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the hard-boiled eggs into thick pieces using a sharp knife.

  2. Heat the gravy to boiling and stir in the curry powder.

  3. Gently add the sliced eggs to the gravy, ensuring they do not break.

  4. Simmer for 15 minutes until heated through.

  5. Serve in a deep dish with boiled rice.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Egg + ricetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Egg + oniontop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,333 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Egg and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,333 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Provide the main protein and body of the dish, holding their shape when sliced and gently simmered.
Gravy with cooked onion
Supplies the liquid base and savory body that the eggs absorb flavor from during simmering.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice that flavors the gravy throughout the dish.

The step that matters

Gently add the sliced eggs to the gravy. Hard-boiled egg whites are delicate and can crack or tear under rough stirring or a hard boil. Adding them gently to the gravy and keeping the simmer gentle helps the slices hold their shape and stay intact.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, rice. 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.

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipesRice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes