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Deviled Eggs

Deviled eggs are hard‑boiled eggs filled with a seasoned yolk mixture and served with lettuce or cabbage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Deviled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Cut the bottom of the egg whites to make them stand upright.

  2. Remove the yolks and mash them with butter, cayenne pepper, mustard, salt, and vinegar until smooth.

  3. Fill the hollowed egg whites with the yolk mixture.

Dress the greens and serve

  1. Chop lettuce or cabbage and season with pepper, salt, vinegar, and sugar.

  2. Fill a salad bowl with the seasoned greens, add the filled eggs, and serve.

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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 base, with whites that hold the filling and yolks that form the creamy mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, making the mashed yolk filling smooth and silky.
Mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that balances the richness of the yolks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the filling and seasons the greens.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar on the greens.

The step that matters

Cut the bottom of the egg whites. Trimming just enough flat base lets each white stand upright without tearing or cracking. Removing too much exposes the white's interior and the eggs may split, so the filling sits unevenly.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, pepper, mustard, vinegar, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, pepper, mustard, vinegar, sugar. 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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