Name: Devilled Eggs
Ingredients: eggs; onion (finely chopped); melted butter; pepper; coarse sea salt; vinegar; toast; white sauce

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Devilled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the eggs for 20 minutes, then shell and cut them in half.
Remove the yolks and pound them into a paste.
Add a little chopped onion, melted butter, pepper, salt, and just enough vinegar to moisten the mixture.
Spoon the yolk mixture back into the egg whites and press the halves together firmly.
Serve on toast with a flavorful white sauce poured over.

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.

Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,226 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, pepper, vinegar, sauce):

Capsicumfits better
Mustardfits better
Shallotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, pepper, vinegar, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.