Why it works: Pepper and watercress work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 983 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Devilled Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Cut the hard-boiled eggs in half and remove the yolks.
In a bowl, season the yolks with salt and cayenne, then add bread crumbs to achieve a crumbly texture.
Fill and serve
Trim a small piece off the ends of the egg whites to help them stand upright.
Fill the egg whites with the seasoned yolk mixture, mounding it slightly.
Arrange the filled eggs on a dish and garnish with watercress or shredded lettuce.
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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Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together983 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + watercresstop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together307 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + watercresstop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together638 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Form the creamy, rich base of the filling that holds the seasoning.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb moisture from the yolks to give the filling a crumbly, firm texture.
The step that matters
Adding the bread crumbs to the yolks. Bread crumbs soak up moisture from the yolks. Too few leave the filling runny and unable to hold a mound, while too many make it dry and pasty. Add them gradually and check the texture.
“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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