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Deviled Eggs on Toast

Deviled eggs served on buttered toast with a hot white sauce and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Deviled Eggs on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the yolks from the hard-boiled eggs and place them in a bowl.

  2. Add the mustard, olive oil, and seasonings to the yolks. Mix until smooth.

Make the white sauce

  1. In a chafing dish, combine the milk, butter mixed with flour, finely chopped egg whites, and salt.

  2. Stir the mixture steadily until it is boiling hot.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the yolk mixture thickly over slices of buttered toast.

  2. Top with grated cheese.

  3. Pour the hot white sauce over everything before serving.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Form the smooth, rich base of the filling, giving body and a creamy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and with flour forms the base that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a white sauce as it heats.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the white sauce, which thickens and turns creamy when heated.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and browning on top of the dish.

The step that matters

Stir the white sauce steadily until boiling. Flour thickens milk only when heated enough and stirred, so constant stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, milk, flour, cheese, olive, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, milk, flour, cheese, olive, pepper. 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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