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Breakfast

Dainty Eggs

A toasted bread topped with a beaten egg white and a whole yolk, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dainty Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the toast

  1. Toast the round slices of bread delicately and butter them.

  2. Dip the buttered bread lightly in hot water.

Build and bake

  1. Beat the egg white stiff with a speck of salt and spread it on each round of bread.

  2. Make a depression in the center of the egg white and place a whole yolk in it.

  3. Set the bread in the oven at 350°F (175°C) just long enough to set the yolk and brown the white slightly.

Serve

  1. Place on a platter 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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 white
Beaten stiff, it forms a light base that sets and browns in the oven.
Egg yolk
Sets in the oven to form a soft, rich centre on the toast.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the toast, helping it taste savoury and aromatic.
Round slices of bread
Provides the crisp, absorbent base that holds the egg topping.

The step that matters

Baking just long enough. Egg yolk sets and egg white browns with heat, so too long in the oven can overcook the yolk and dry the toast, while too short leaves the yolk runny and the white pale.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, 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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Poached 48Scrambled 16Baked 12Butter 3Deviled 3with Sauce 3 See all 62 →

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