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Eggs, Curried.

Hard‑boiled eggs served in curry sauce with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Eggs, Curried.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs hard, then cut them in half across and trim the ends so they stand upright.

  2. Arrange the egg halves around a hot dish.

Make the curry sauce

  1. Prepare a pint of curry sauce (see your favorite recipe for curry sauce).

  2. Pour the curry sauce over the eggs.

  3. Boil the rice as you would for curry and fill the center of the dish with it.

Alternative method

  1. For an alternative, chop and fry onions, then add grated apple and moisten with stock, keeping it thick.

  2. Stir in curry paste to taste and a little lemon juice, then add quartered or sliced hard-boiled eggs.

  3. Cover and let the eggs absorb the flavors, then serve with rice or on small rounds of toast.

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. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  2. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Rice + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  5. Onion + appletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,206 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Provide the main protein and bulk of the dish, holding their shape when halved.
Rice
Adds starchy bulk that soaks up the sauce and balances the rich curry flavor.
Onions
Build a sweet, savory base when chopped and fried in the alternative method.
Grated apple
Adds gentle sweetness and body that thickens the alternative sauce as it softens.
Curry paste
Supplies the main spice and aroma that flavors the alternative sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the richness of the curry sauce.

The step that matters

Keeping the alternative sauce thick. If the onions and apple are moistened with too much stock, the sauce thins and will not cling to the eggs. Starch from the apple and reduction of the liquid help it thicken, so add stock gradually.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sauce, rice, onion, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sauce, rice, onion, lemon. 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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