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Devilled Eggs

Hard‑boiled eggs filled with a seasoned yolk mixture and served on a bed of greens.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Devilled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs hard, then place them in cold water until cool.

  2. Peel the eggs and cut them in half.

Make the filling

  1. Remove the yolks and mash them with melted butter, Cayenne pepper, mustard, and vinegar.

  2. Fill the egg whites with the yolk mixture.

Serve

  1. Serve on a bed of cresses, lettuce, or chicory that has been dressed simply.

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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 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

Egg yolks
Their richness and texture form the creamy base of the filling.
Melted butter
Adds fat and smoothness, making the yolk mixture silky and rich.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the yolks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the filling and cuts through the fat.

The step that matters

Mashing the yolks with butter. Yolks must be mashed smooth while the butter is still melted so the fat emulsifies evenly into the yolks. Lumps or a split, greasy filling result if the butter is too cold or added unevenly.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

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