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 ↓
Baked 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
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Grease a baking dish with butter.
Make the base
Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Add a little salt to the egg whites.
Spoon the egg whites into the dish and make six holes.
Bake
Drop a whole yolk into each hole.
Bake until the egg whites are slightly brown.
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).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Whites set into a light structure, while the whole yolks stay soft in the holes.
- Butter
- Greasing the dish keeps the baked eggs from sticking to it.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Egg whites hold air when beaten to stiff peaks, and that air gives the base its lift and structure. Under-beaten whites stay runny and spread, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy.
“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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