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Hard-boiled eggs simmered in a buttery curry sauce with onions, apple, stock, cream, and rice flour.

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

To Curry Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs hard, then set aside to cool.

Make the curry sauce

  1. In a stew-pan, melt the butter and add the curry powder; cook over medium heat for a few minutes.

  2. Add the minced onions and apple; fry gently until soft.

  3. Gradually add the stock and simmer until reduced to a pulp.

  4. Mix the cream and rice flour until smooth, then stir into the curry; simmer for 5-6 minutes.

Combine and serve

  1. Slice the eggs and add them to the sauce to heat through.

  2. Carefully transfer the eggs to a hot dish, pour the sauce over, and serve hot with boiled rice.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provide the main body of the dish, holding their shape while sitting in the warm sauce.
Butter
Carries the curry powder's flavour and adds richness to the sauce.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, forming the base of the sauce.
Apple
Adds mild sweetness and acidity that balances the curry spice.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Rice flour
Thickens the sauce as it simmers, giving it body without lumps when mixed smooth first.

The step that matters

Mixing the cream and rice flour before adding them to the curry. Rice flour clumps when dropped straight into hot liquid. Mixing it smooth with cream first lets the starch disperse evenly, so it thickens the sauce without lumps.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Applethe original

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