Name: Curried Eggs Stuffed
Ingredients: 6 whole eggs; 2 egg yolks; 2 oz butter; 1 tablespoon béchamel sauce; ½ lb rice, boiled; 1 teaspoon curry powder; Salt to taste

Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Curried Eggs Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Boil the 4 eggs hard, then shell them and cut them in half lengthwise.
Remove the yolks from the boiled eggs and pound them in a mortar with the 2 raw yolks, butter, béchamel sauce, curry powder, and salt.
Mix in the boiled rice with a fork.

Fill and serve

Fill the egg white halves with the mixture and place them in a baking dish to heat.
Serve with a sauce of your choice.

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.

Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sauce + ricetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,396 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + ricetop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,350 recipes

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 white halves that hold the filling and the yolks that bind it.
Egg yolks: Add richness and help bind the filling into a smooth, creamy mixture.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a silky texture in the filling.
Béchamel sauce: Adds moisture and creaminess so the filling stays soft and spreadable.
Rice: Bulks out the filling and adds a light, soft texture.
Curry powder: Provides the main spiced aroma and flavour of the filling.

The step that matters

Pounding the yolks with butter and béchamel into a smooth paste. If the yolks, butter, and béchamel are not worked fully together, the filling stays lumpy and the curry flavour is patchy. Fat and yolk blended well form a creamy, evenly seasoned mixture that holds its shape when piped into the whites.

“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.