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Eggs Stewed with Cheese

A simple dish of eggs stewed with butter, pepper, salt, and melted cheese, served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Charles Elme Francatelli · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg 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 ↓

Eggs Stewed with Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the eggs

  1. Fry three eggs in a pan with one ounce of butter, seasoned with pepper and salt.

  2. When the eggs are just set firm at the bottom of the pan, slip them onto a dish.

Add the cheese

  1. Cover them all over with some very thin slices of cheese.

  2. Place the dish before the fire to melt the cheese.

Serve

  1. Eat this cheap little tit-bit with some toast.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

186Calories
7 gProtein
17 gFat
2 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
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 Charles Elme Francatelli. 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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Proteins set when heated, giving the dish its firm, sliceable body.
Butter
Fat that cooks the eggs gently and adds richness and flavor.
Cheese (in the method)
Melts over the warm eggs, adding creamy texture and savory flavor.

The step that matters

Slip the eggs out when just set firm. Egg proteins tighten as they heat, so leaving them in the pan too long makes them dry and rubbery. Removing them while the bottoms are just set keeps them tender, and the residual heat finishes them.

“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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