Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
To Bake Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Butter a clean, smooth saucepan.
Break eggs into a saucer one by one; if good, slip them into the dish without breaking the yolk.
Bake
Place a small piece of butter on each egg and sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Set the dish in a well-heated oven at 400°F (200°C) and bake until the whites are set.
This will take just a few minutes. It is more delicate than fried eggs.
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.
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together50,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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
- Eggs
- Set to a firm white while the yolk stays soft, forming the body of the dish.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, and keeps the eggs from sticking to the dish.
The step that matters
Slipping the eggs into the dish without breaking the yolk. Egg whites set quickly in heat, but a broken yolk spreads the white and leaves the dish uneven. Breaking eggs into a saucer first lets you check freshness and remove any bad egg before it goes into the dish.
“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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