Name: Chinese Eggs
Ingredients: 6 hard boiled eggs; cream sauce; salt and pepper to taste; 1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chinese Eggs

Ingredients

6 hard boiled eggs
cream sauce
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley

Directions

Prepare

Prepare the cream sauce as you would for creamed sweetbreads.
Cut the hard-boiled eggs into quarters.
Heat the sauce. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

Assemble and serve

Add the egg quarters to the hot sauce.
Let the mixture stand covered for a moment.
Sprinkle with chopped parsley 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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,765 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,693 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together21,449 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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 body of the dish, cut into quarters for even coating in the sauce.
Cream sauce: Supplies moisture and a rich, creamy texture that coats the eggs.
Parsley: Adds fresh, green aroma and a light visual garnish at the end.