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Curried Eggs

A dish of boiled eggs mixed with butter, curry powder, onions, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Curried Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs hard, then peel and slice them.

Make the curry

  1. In a lined saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the curry powder and minced onions and cook until soft.

  3. Stir in the sliced eggs and cream.

  4. Let it simmer gently without boiling.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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
Form the main body of the dish, holding their shape while absorbing the spiced cream.
Butter
Carries the curry powder's flavour and adds richness to the sauce.
Curry powder
Provides the dominant spiced aroma that defines the dish.
Onions
Soften into the fat and add savoury sweetness that rounds out the sauce.
Cream
Makes the sauce smooth and rich, with fat that carries the spices.

The step that matters

Let it simmer gently without boiling. Boiling cream can cause it to separate and turn grainy or oily, and high heat can toughen the egg whites. A gentle simmer keeps the sauce smooth and the eggs tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, cream. 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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