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Stewed Eggs and Cheese

A thickened egg and cheese mixture cooked until set, served hot with optional parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Stewed Eggs and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thoroughly beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Mix the beaten eggs with the butter and grated cheese.

  3. Season the mixture with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook in an earthenware pot or enameled saucepan until thick.

  2. Pour the mixture into a deep dish before serving.

  3. Add chopped parsley if desired.

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 + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a thick, creamy body as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the eggs soft and smooth.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps thicken the mixture as it melts.

The step that matters

Cook in an earthenware pot or enameled saucepan until thick. Eggs can curdle and turn grainy if heated too quickly or too hot. Gentle, even heat in a heavy pot lets the proteins set slowly into a smooth, thick texture.

“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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