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Deviled Eggs

Hard‑boiled eggs filled with a seasoned yolk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Deviled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the eggs

  1. Place 6 eggs in a saucepan and cover with boiling water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then cook rapidly for 15 minutes.

  3. Cool the eggs immediately in cold water.

  4. Shell the eggs and place them in fresh cold water for 30 minutes.

Make the filling

  1. Slice each egg in half crosswise and remove the yolk carefully.

  2. Press the yolks through a fine sieve.

  3. Mix the yolks with olive oil or melted butter, onion juice, celery salt, vinegar, table salt, white pepper, and paprika.

  4. If desired, add French mustard to the mixture.

Fill and serve

  1. Refill the egg whites with the yolk mixture, making the surface level.

  2. Press the two halves together 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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 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
Whites set into a firm structure while the yolks form the creamy filling.
Olive oil or melted butter
Adds fat that makes the yolk filling smooth and rich.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich yolk filling.

The step that matters

Cook the eggs rapidly, then cool them immediately. Boiling hard for 15 minutes sets the yolks fully so they can be pressed through a sieve. Cooling right away stops carry-over cooking, which otherwise leaves a grey ring around the yolk and makes shelling harder.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, olive, onion, celery, vinegar, white pepper):

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, onion, celery, vinegar, white 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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