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Plovers' Eggs in Cases

A pastry case filled with custard and a hard‑boiled plover egg, garnished with watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Plovers' Eggs in Cases

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Make a pint of custard by combining boiled milk and eggs, then flavor with praline.

  2. Pour the custard into a buttered charlotte mold lined with buttered paper.

  3. Steam gently until firm, following slow steaming directions.

Make the cases

  1. Roll out short pastry thinly and line oval patty pans (2 inches long) to make cases.

  2. Bake the pastry cases and let them cool before turning them out of the pans.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread green butter on the cases.

  2. Place a shelled hard-boiled plover egg in the center of each case.

  3. Serve on a flat dish garnished with watercress.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Egg + watercresstop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Butter + watercresstop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together842 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and thicken the custard, giving it a firm, sliceable body when steamed.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, providing moisture and a smooth, tender texture.
Praline
Adds sweetness and a nutty aroma to the custard.
Short pastry
Forms the crisp, rich case that holds the filling.
Green butter
Adds fat and richness to the pastry cases.

The step that matters

Steam gently until firm. High heat or rapid boiling makes egg custard curdle and turn grainy or watery. Gentle steam heat lets the egg proteins set evenly into a smooth, firm custard.

“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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