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Stuffed Eggs

A dish of hard‑boiled eggs filled with a ham and cream mixture, coated in egg and cracker crumbs, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,526 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stuffed Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel the hard-boiled eggs and cut them in half.

  2. Remove the yolks and mash them.

  3. Mix the mashed yolks with chopped ham, pepper, and cream until moist.

Stuff and coat

  1. Stuff the egg whites with the mixture and reassemble the halves.

  2. Roll the stuffed eggs in beaten egg.

  3. Coat with cracker crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry in hot oil or lard until golden brown.

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. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Ham + creamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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-boiled eggs
Provide the whites that hold the filling and the mashed yolks that bind it.
Ham
Adds savory flavor and body to the yolk filling.
Cream
Adds moisture so the yolk filling stays soft and spreadable.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the cracker crumbs stick to the outside.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil or lard until golden brown. The oil must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs more fat and turns greasy and soggy before it crisps.

“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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