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Curried Eggs

Eggs served in a buttery curry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Curried Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a pan.

  2. Whisk in flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually add milk, stirring until thickened.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and curry powder.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut the hard-cooked eggs into quarters.

  2. Place them on a serving dish or toast.

  3. Pour the sauce over the eggs.

  4. Garnish with toast points and parsley.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Hard-cooked eggs
Form the main body of the dish, providing protein and the bulk of each serving.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce that coats the eggs.
Butter
Carries the flour and curry powder and adds richness to the sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats with the flour.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm spice flavour and aroma that define the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add milk, stirring until thickened. Adding milk slowly while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, preventing lumps. The starch then gelatinises as the sauce heats, so it thickens smoothly rather than clumping.

“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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