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Dessert

Meringu^d Eggs

A baked dish of stiffly whipped egg whites with yolks in the center, seasoned with pepper, salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Meringu^d Eggs

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Whip the egg whites until very stiff.

  2. Spoon the froth onto a heatproof platter.

  3. Make a hollow in the center of each heap and place a yolk in it.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the meringue begins to color faintly.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, add a bit of butter on each yolk, and serve in the baking platter.

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 + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that holds its shape and forms the meringue base.
Egg yolks
Sit in the hollows as a rich, runny center that sets lightly during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the yolks as they bake.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites until very stiff. Egg whites need to be whipped to a stiff foam so the air bubbles hold the structure. If the whites are under-whipped or contain any fat, such as yolk, they will collapse and spread rather than hold up the heaps around the yolks.

“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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