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Eggs, Curried.

Hard-boiled eggs served in a curry sauce with rice.

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

  1. Prepare the curry sauce (see Hot Sauces).

  2. Boil the eggs.

  3. Cut the eggs in half and trim the ends so they stand upright.

  4. Arrange the egg halves around a hot dish.

  5. Pour the curry sauce over the egg halves.

  6. Cook the rice as for curry.

  7. Fill the center of the dish with the rice.

Make the curry mixture

  1. For an alternative, chop and fry the onion.

  2. Add the grated apple.

  3. Moisten with steak until thick.

  4. Stir in the curry paste and lemon juice.

  5. Add the egg quarters, coating them with the mixture.

  6. Cover and let the eggs absorb the flavors.

Serve

  1. Serve with 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. 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

Eggs
Form the main body of the dish and soak up the surrounding sauce.
Rice
Forms a starchy bed in the centre of the dish and absorbs some of the sauce.
Onion
Softens and sweetens when fried, adding savoury depth to the mixture.
Apple
Adds mild sweetness and body to the sauce.
Curry paste
Supplies concentrated spice and aroma to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, heavily spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Cover and let the eggs absorb the flavors. Egg whites are mild and porous, so they take on flavour slowly. Resting them covered in the sauce lets the seasoning penetrate, while the mixture is still warm enough to carry it into the egg.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, egg, 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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