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Swiss Eggs

A baked dish of eggs topped with Swiss cheese, butter, parsley, salt, and pepper.

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 ↓

Swiss Eggs

Oven, in the book's wordsA very quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Spread the butter on a dish.

  2. Lay the Swiss cheese slices on the butter.

  3. Break the eggs on top, keeping the yolks whole.

  4. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Mix the chopped parsley and grated Swiss cheese.

  2. Sprinkle the mixture over the eggs.

  3. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 5 minutes.

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 + swiss cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together413 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Swiss cheese + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  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

Eggs
Set to form the body of the dish while the yolks stay whole.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the base cook gently and keep the eggs from sticking.
Swiss cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Keeping the yolks whole. Breaking the eggs gently onto the cheese keeps the yolks intact. Broken yolks spread and cook unevenly in a short, very hot bake, so the eggs set less neatly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, swiss cheese, egg, 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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