Why it works: Egg and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,368 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Eggs and Parmesan Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Boil the eggs until hard, about 10 minutes.
Cool the eggs in cold water, then peel them.
Assemble and serve
Slice the eggs and arrange them on a plate.
Sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese over the sliced eggs.
Serve immediately.
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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Egg + parmesan cheesetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,368 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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, setting firm when boiled.
- Parmesan cheese
- Adds salty, savoury flavour and a sharp, nutty aroma to the eggs.
The step that matters
Cool the eggs in cold water, then peel them. Plunging boiled eggs into cold water stops the cooking so the yolks do not turn grey-green, and the cold also helps the shell separate from the white, making peeling cleaner.
“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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