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Steamed Egg

A baked egg served in a buttered earthen mold with seasoned meat 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 ↓

Steamed Egg

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Butter an earthen mold generously.

  2. Season the chopped meat with salt and pepper.

  3. Line the buttered mold with the seasoned meat.

Bake and serve

  1. Slip in one egg.

  2. Cook in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until the egg is firm.

  3. Turn out from the mold and garnish with parsley.

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

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

  3. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Sets when baked, binding the dish into a firm, sliceable centre.
Chopped cooked chicken, veal, or lamb
Forms the base layer and adds savoury meaty flavour to the egg.
Butter
Coats the mold so the dish releases cleanly and gains a little richness.

The step that matters

Cook until the egg is firm. Egg proteins set with heat and keep setting as they cook. Pulling the dish too early leaves the white runny, while overbaking makes the yolk dry and rubbery and the texture tough.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, chicken, pepper, egg. 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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