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Beauregard Eggs

Beauregard Eggs are boiled eggs served on toasted bread with a sauce of butter, flour, milk, and egg whites, topped with yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beauregard Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Hard boil the eggs.

  2. Separate the whites and yolks.

  3. Chop the whites very fine.

  4. Chop the yolks, keeping them separate.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, mix 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon flour.

  2. Add ½ cup milk.

  3. Stir until boiling.

  4. Add ½ teaspoon salt.

  5. Add ¼ teaspoon pepper.

  6. Add the chopped egg whites.

  7. Stir until it just reaches boiling.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over nicely toasted bread.

  2. Top with the chopped yolks.

  3. Dust with salt and pepper.

  4. Serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Chopped whites add body to the sauce, and yolks give a rich, creamy topping.
Butter
Melted butter carries the flour and adds richness and a savory, buttery flavor to the sauce.
Flour
Flour cooked in butter forms a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Milk forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce until it just boils. Flour thickens liquid only once its starch heats and swells, so the sauce must reach boiling. Stirring keeps the flour dispersed, which prevents lumps and scorching on the pan bottom.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, milk, 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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