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Egg Curry

Hard-boiled eggs cooked with spices, onions, and ghee, finished with lime juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Saffron and cardamom match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Egg Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the eggs until hard.

  2. Remove the shells and separate the whites from the yolks.

  3. Slice the egg whites.

  4. Grind all the spices.

  5. Mix half of the spices with 2 oz. of ghee.

  6. Slice three onions.

Cook the curry

  1. Fry the onions brown in the ghee.

  2. Add the egg yolks and whites to the pan. Fry the mixture together.

  3. Mix the remaining onions and spices with a little water. Add the mixture to the eggs.

  4. Boil the mixture for a few minutes. Add lime juice.

  5. 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. Saffron + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Turmeric + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together667 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cinnamon + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,299 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,114 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Form the body of the dish, with whites and yolks cooked separately in the curry.
Ghee
Carries the spices and fries the onions, adding richness and carrying flavour.
Onions
Fried brown in ghee to add sweetness and a deep, savoury base to the sauce.
Turmeric
Gives the curry its yellow colour and an earthy, slightly bitter flavour.
Lime
Its juice adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the onions brown in the ghee. Onions that are only softened stay pale and sweet-bland; browning them through caramelisation builds the deep, savoury base the sauce depends on. Slow, even heat prevents scorching, which would make the curry bitter.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, ghee, saffron, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamom, pepper):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, ghee, saffron, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamom, 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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