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Deviled Eggs

Hard‑boiled eggs filled with a seasoned yolk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Deviled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the eggs for about 20 minutes until hard.

  2. Once cooled, cut each egg in half and remove the yolks.

Make the filling

  1. Rub the yolks until smooth and mix in vinegar, melted butter, salt, black pepper, red pepper, and mustard.

  2. Mold the mixture into balls to fill each half egg.

Garnish

  1. Garnish with chopped parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 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

Eggs
Whites form the shell for the filling, and cooked yolks provide the creamy base.
Melted butter
Adds fat that makes the yolk filling smooth and rich.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the rich yolk mixture.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor that balances the richness of the yolks.

The step that matters

Rubbing the yolks until smooth. Cooked yolks are dry and crumbly, so they must be pressed finely and mixed with fat and liquid to become a smooth, spreadable filling. Lumps left behind give an uneven texture.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

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