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Eggs a LA Maitre D'hotel

Hard‑boiled eggs served in a butter‑flour‑milk sauce with parsley and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Eggs a LA Maitre D'hotel

5 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Put the flour and half the butter into a stewpan.

  2. Stir them over the fire until the mixture thickens.

  3. Pour in the milk, which should be boiling.

  4. Add a seasoning of pepper and salt.

  5. Simmer the whole for 5 minutes.

  6. Put the remainder of the butter into the sauce.

  7. Add the minced parsley.

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs hard.

  2. Strip off the shells.

  3. Cut the eggs into quarters.

  4. Put them on a dish.

  5. Bring the sauce to the boiling point.

  6. Add the lemon juice.

  7. Pour over the eggs and serve.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a dish rather thickly with good fresh butter. Melt it.

  2. Break the eggs into it the same as for poaching.

  3. Sprinkle them with white pepper and fine salt.

  4. Put the remainder of the butter, cut into very small pieces, on the top of them.

  5. Put the dish on a hot plate, or in the oven, or before the fire.

  6. Let it remain until the whites become set, but not hard.

  7. Serve immediately, placing the dish they were cooked in on another.

  8. To hasten the cooking of the eggs, a salamander may be held over them for a minute; but great care must be taken that they are not too much done.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

701Calories
28 gProtein
15 gFat
113 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce.
Butter (in the method)
Adds richness and flavour to the sauce and the buttered dish.
Eggs
Form the main body of the dish, setting gently when warmed.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Let the eggs set without overcooking. Egg whites set at moderate heat and become rubbery if overheated. Removing the dish once the whites are just firm keeps the yolks soft and the texture tender. Residual heat keeps cooking them after they leave the heat source.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, lemon, egg, pepper):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, lemon, 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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