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For Dressing Eggs

Hard-boiled eggs dressed with a vinegar, sugar, pepper, salt, butter, and flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

For Dressing Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the eggs until hard, then remove the shells and cut them in half.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine vinegar, sugar, pepper, salt, and butter, then bring to a boil.

  2. Whisk in flour to thicken slightly.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the eggs and serve hot or cold.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 main body of the dish, with the cooked whites and yolks forming the base for the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness of the dressing.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar, adding sweetness to the dressing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smooth, rounded flavour.
Flour
Thickens the liquid dressing as it heats, giving it body that clings to the eggs.

The step that matters

Whisking in the flour. Flour thickens when it is whisked into hot liquid and given time to cook. Adding it while the liquid is only lukewarm, or leaving lumps, can leave the dressing thin or grainy. Keep whisking as it heats so the starch disperses evenly.

“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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