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Eggs with Cheese

A scrambled egg dish flavored with butter, pepper, salt, nutmeg, parsley, cream, and Parmesan cheese, finished by broiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Eggs with Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the eggs

  1. Mix the eggs, butter, pepper, salt, nutmeg, parsley, and cream in a bowl.

  2. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and stir over medium heat until the eggs are cooked.

  3. Add the grated Parmesan cheese and mix well.

Brown and serve

  1. Transfer to a serving dish, sprinkle with additional cheese, and brown the top under a broiler.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into soft curds that form the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the eggs tender as they cook.
Parmesan cheese
Melts into the eggs for savory flavor and a salty, nutty taste.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, giving the curds a creamier texture.

The step that matters

Stir over medium heat until the eggs are cooked. Egg proteins set quickly and turn grainy or rubbery if overheated, so gentle medium heat with constant stirring keeps the curds soft and creamy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, pepper, nutmeg, cream, parmesan cheese. 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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