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Deviled Eggs

A dish of hard‑boiled eggs filled with a mustard and olive oil yolk mixture, topped with cheese and a hot white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Deviled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the yolks from the hard-boiled eggs and place them in a bowl.

  2. Mix the yolks with the mustard, olive oil, and seasonings using the back of a silver spoon.

Make the white sauce

  1. In a chafing dish, combine the milk, butter mixed with cornstarch, finely chopped egg whites, and a little salt.

  2. Stir constantly until the mixture is boiling hot.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the yolk mixture thickly on slices of buttered toast.

  2. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the toast.

  3. Pour the hot white sauce on top and serve.

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. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks provide the rich, creamy body of the filling; chopped whites add texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and with cornstarch helps thicken the white sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, which thickens as it heats.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk-based sauce when heated, giving it body.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the richness of the yolks.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the mixture is boiling hot. Cornstarch thickens only when heated to a boil and needs constant stirring; otherwise it can clump or stay thin, and milk can scorch on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, milk, cheese, olive, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, milk, cheese, olive, pepper. 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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