Name: Deviled Eggs
Ingredients: hard boiled eggs; lettuce leaves; Worcestershire sauce; mayonnaise; vinegar; olive oil; mustard; cayenne pepper

Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Deviled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the hard boiled eggs in half lengthwise and remove the yolks.
Mash the yolks into a smooth paste with a little olive oil.
Add cayenne pepper, a touch of mustard, a dash of vinegar or lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce to the yolks.
Fill the hollowed egg whites with the yolk mixture.
Serve on a bed of lettuce and drizzle with mayonnaise dressing.

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.

Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,950 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

Swap the lettuce

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

Capsicumfits better
Horseradishfits better
Shallotfits about as well
Lettucethe original

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