Name: Minced Eggs with Ham or Sausage
Ingredients: 10 hard boiled eggs; ½ teaspoon salt; 1 cup chopped boiled ham or 1 cup milk; ½ pound fried sausage; 1 cup cream; ¼ teaspoon red pepper; ¾ tablespoon flour; 2 tablespoons butter; 8 pieces buttered toast

Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Minced Eggs with Ham or Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

Make a sauce by boiling milk, cream, flour, and butter together.

Assemble and serve

Chop the hard boiled eggs and mix with sausage or ham.
Add the egg mixture to the sauce and stir well.
Serve the mixture on buttered toast.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs: Provide the bulk and creamy body of the filling once chopped and mixed into the sauce.
Flour: Thickens the milk and cream into a smooth sauce that holds the filling together.
Butter: Adds richness and flavor to the sauce and buttered toast.
Cream: Adds richness and a thicker, silkier texture to the sauce.
Fried sausage: Contributes savory, browned flavor and substance to the egg filling.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour must be fully dispersed in the hot liquid and cooked through, or the sauce can turn lumpy and taste raw. Stirring while it boils keeps it smooth and lets it thicken evenly before the eggs are added.

“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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Minced Eggs with Ham or Sausage