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Boiled Eggs

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Boiled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

  1. For soft-boiled eggs, place fresh eggs in a covered vessel of cold water. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes.

  2. Remove the eggs and serve in an egg cup, cutting off the large end of the shell. Add salt, pepper, and butter to taste.

  3. For hard-boiled eggs, boil for 30 to 45 minutes. Cool in cold water, then roll on the table to peel easily.

  4. For stuffed eggs, cut hard-boiled eggs in half and remove the yolks. Mix yolks with minced ham or dried beef, season with salt and pepper, and add mustard and butter.

  5. Stuff the egg halves with the mixture and place on a hot platter.

  6. To make the Bechamel sauce, mix flour and milk until smooth, then boil slowly, adding salt, onion, black pepper, 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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, butter, ham, mustard, flour, milk):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

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