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Devilled Egg

A hard‑cooked egg filled with a seasoned yolk mixture, served on a lettuce leaf.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Devilled Egg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the hard-cooked egg in half lengthwise.

  2. Remove the yolk and mash it into a paste with olive oil or butter, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne.

Fill and serve

  1. Add the chopped ham or tongue and mustard, mixing well.

  2. Refill the egg whites with the yolk mixture.

  3. Serve on a lettuce leaf.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Forms the creamy base that gives the filling its smooth, rich texture.
Olive oil or butter
Adds fat that smooths the mashed yolk into a spreadable paste.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich yolk and balances the fat.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and some emulsifying help to the yolk filling.

The step that matters

Mashing the yolk with fat and acid. The yolk must be mashed smooth before the other ingredients go in. Fat and lemon juice must be worked in gradually so the mixture stays creamy rather than breaking or turning lumpy.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lemon, olive, pepper, ham):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, olive, pepper, ham. 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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