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Swiss Eggs

A baked egg dish with Gruyère cheese, butter, parsley, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Swiss 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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Spread the butter on the bottom of a fire‑proof porcelain dish.

  3. Layer the Gruyère cheese slices on top of the butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Break the eggs on top, keeping the yolks whole.

  2. Sprinkle with mignonette pepper and salt.

  3. Mix the chopped parsley with the grated Gruyère cheese and strew over the eggs.

  4. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.

  5. Serve in the dish they were baked in.

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 + gruyere cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Gruyere cheese + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together200 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a soft, tender custard-like texture as they bake, forming the body of the dish.
Gruyere cheese
Melts over the butter and browns on top, adding richness and savoury flavour.
Butter
Coats the dish and adds fat, richness and flavour that carries into the cheese layer.

The step that matters

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Eggs set quickly in a hot oven, and overbaking turns the yolks firm and dry. Pull the dish when the whites are just set and the yolks still look soft.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, gruyere cheese, egg, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, gruyere cheese, egg, 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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