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Eggs Cocotte

Eggs Cocotte is a baked egg dish with bread crumbs, cream, optional ham, chicken or mushrooms, seasoned and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Eggs Cocotte

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dishes

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter individual baking dishes.

  3. Mix fine bread crumbs with cream and line the bottom of the dishes.

Add the filling and bake

  1. If desired, sprinkle the dishes with chopped ham, chicken, or mushrooms mixed with a little cream and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Break an egg into each dish and cook like shirred eggs.

  3. Once done, cover with a little cream, tomato sauce, or béchamel sauce.

  4. Garnish with chopped parsley before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs (in the method)
Set to a tender custard-like texture as they cook in the dish.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the bread crumb base and the finished top.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a soft base layer that absorbs cream and keeps the eggs from sticking.
Ham, chicken, or mushrooms
Add savoury flavour and substance beneath the egg when used.

The step that matters

Break an egg into each dish and cook like shirred eggs. Eggs cook quickly and can turn rubbery or dry if overcooked. Watching for the whites to just set while the yolk stays soft keeps the texture tender, since egg proteins firm up with heat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, cream, ham, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, cream, ham, 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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