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Eggs and Bacon Another Way

Baked boiled eggs stuffed with white meat, ham, parsley, shallot, cream, ketchup, cayenne, breadcrumbs, and mace, served on bacon or ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Eggs and Bacon Another Way

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the eggs for 5 minutes, then peel and cut them in half.

  2. Remove the yolks and place them in a bowl with the white meat, ham, parsley, shallot, cream, ketchup, cayenne, breadcrumbs, and mace.

  3. Pound the mixture until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the egg white halves with the mixture.

  2. Bake gently at 350°F (175°C) for 10 minutes.

  3. Serve on broiled bacon or ham with some sauce over them.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Cream + ketchuptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites form the edible shell, while the yolks are mashed into the filling for body and richness.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and help the filling hold together with a soft, tender texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft rather than dry.
Ham
Contributes savory, salty flavor and a firmer chew to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake gently at 350°F (175°C) for 10 minutes. Egg proteins set at moderate heat; overheating makes the filling tough, rubbery and prone to drying out, so keep the oven gentle and watch the time.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, meat, ham, parsley, cream, ketchup, pepper):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, meat, ham, parsley, cream, ketchup, 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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