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Escalloped Eggs

Eggs topped with ham and breadcrumbs, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Escalloped 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 the filling

  1. Mix minced ham and fine bread crumbs in equal parts.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and melted butter.

  3. Add milk to moisten until quite soft.

Assemble and bake

  1. Half fill buttered patty pans with the mixture.

  2. Break an egg on top of each mixture.

  3. Dust with salt and pepper.

  4. Sprinkle with fine crumbs.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 8 minutes.

  6. Serve immediately.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set in the oven to form a soft, cooked centre on each portion.
Minced ham
Provides the savoury meat flavour that forms the body of each portion.
Fine bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and butter to give the mixture a soft, binding body.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs so the mixture stays tender rather than dry.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Break the egg on top of each mixture. The egg white and yolk set at different rates, so the yolk can overcook or the white can stay runny. Keeping the portions shallow and the oven hot helps both set evenly in the short bake.

“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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