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Hard-boiled Eggs Served Cold

Hard-boiled eggs served cold, drizzled with salad oil and vinegar, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hard-boiled Eggs Served Cold

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the eggs for 10 minutes.

  2. Transfer the eggs to cold water and remove the shells.

  3. Serve the eggs whole or sliced, drizzled with salad oil and vinegar, and season with salt and pepper.

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. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 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 protein, which sets firm when boiled and forms the dish's body.
Salad oil
Adds fat and a smooth mouthfeel to the sliced or whole eggs.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, mild flavour of the eggs.

The step that matters

Transfer the eggs to cold water. Plunging boiled eggs into cold water stops the cooking quickly, which keeps the yolks from overcooking and turning grey-green at the surface. It also makes the shells easier to peel.

“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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