Skip to main content
Main

Buttered Eggs

A dish of eggs cooked with parsley, anchovy, ham essence, butter, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Buttered Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the eggs into a saucepan.

  2. Add the chopped parsley, mashed anchovy, essence of ham, warmed butter, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Beat the mixture together.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the saucepan over low heat and stir continuously with a wooden spoon until thickened.

  2. Serve in a deep dish with fresh toast underneath.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Parsley + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Anchovy + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together256 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 and thicken as they are gently heated, forming the body of the dish.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and smooth texture, helping the eggs stay silky rather than dry.
Anchovy
Adds savory depth, giving a salty, umami note that is not fishy when finely mashed.
Essence of ham
Contributes a concentrated meaty, savory flavor throughout the eggs.

The step that matters

Stir continuously over low heat until thickened. Egg proteins set quickly at higher heat and can curdle or scramble. Low heat with constant stirring lets the mixture thicken gradually and evenly, keeping it smooth.

“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.

More butter eggs recipes

Brown 9on Toast 3 See all 17 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes