Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Scrambled Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Beat the eggs slightly with a silver fork.
Add salt, pepper, and milk to the eggs.
Cook
In a non-stick omelette pan, melt the butter.
Pour the egg mixture into the pan.
Cook until creamy, stirring and scraping from the bottom of the pan.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together26,984 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Set into soft curds that form the body of the scramble.
- Milk
- Adds moisture so the eggs stay tender and creamy rather than dry.
- Butter
- Adds fat that keeps the eggs from sticking and gives a rich flavour.
The step that matters
Cook until creamy, stirring and scraping from the bottom of the pan.. Eggs turn rubbery when proteins tighten over high heat. Stirring and scraping keep curds small and moist, and removing the pan from heat while they are still slightly glossy prevents overcooking.
“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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