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Shirred Egg

A baked egg topped with cream and bacon, served with string beans and spinach.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 365 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Shirred Egg

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. Grease a small baking dish.

Bake

  1. Crack the egg into the dish and pour the cream over it.

  2. Cut the bacon into small pieces and sprinkle on top.

  3. Bake for 10-15 minutes until the egg is set.

Serve

  1. Serve with cooked string beans and spinach.

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. Beans + spinachtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together365 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Cream + spinachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Egg + spinachtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + beanstop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Sets when baked, giving the dish its firm yet tender body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the egg soft and silky as it cooks.
Bacon
Adds salty, savory fat that flavors the egg and browns slightly on top.

The step that matters

Bake until the egg is set. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat; underbaking leaves the white runny, while overbaking makes the yolk dry and rubbery. Check for a firm white and a yolk that still looks glossy.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, spinach):

  1. Cashew nutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, spinach. 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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