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Scalloped Eggs

Scalloped eggs are baked eggs with bread crumbs, butter, milk, pepper, and sea salt.

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 ↓

Scalloped Eggs

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Assemble

  1. Peel and cut the hard-boiled eggs into small pieces.

  2. In a baking dish, layer half of the bread crumbs.

  3. Add a layer of egg pieces and season with butter, pepper, and salt.

  4. Cover with more bread crumbs and add another layer of egg pieces.

  5. Top with remaining bread crumbs and dot with butter.

  6. Pour enough milk over the top to moisten well.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30 minutes in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Form the main filling and set into a soft, custardy texture as they bake.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and butter, forming a soft structure that holds the layers together.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs and eggs so the dish bakes tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the top brown and the flavour carry through.

The step that matters

Moistening with milk. Milk must reach all the crumbs so they soften evenly. Dry patches stay crumbly and taste floury, while a flooded dish bakes soggy and loose.

“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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