Skip to main content
Main

Baked Eggs. No. 1

A dish of eggs baked in gravy with bread crumbs, served on toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Baked Eggs. No. 1

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a shallow baking dish, combine the gravy, bread crumbs, and eggs.

  3. Season with pepper and salt, then sprinkle the bread crumbs over the top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 5 minutes until the eggs are set.

  2. Carefully remove the eggs and place them on the toasted bread on a hot platter.

  3. If desired, add cream, chopped parsley, and onion to the remaining gravy, boil, and pour over the eggs.

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. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when baked, forming the soft structure that holds the dish together.
Gravy
Provides moisture and savory flavor that keeps the eggs from drying as they bake.
Bread crumbs
Form a light crust on top that browns in the oven and adds texture.
Bread rounds
Soak up juices and give a crisp, sturdy base under the eggs.

The step that matters

Baking the eggs. Egg whites and yolks set quickly with heat, so pulling them out once the whites are firm but the yolks still look soft keeps them tender. Overbaking makes eggs rubbery and dry.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, veal, bread, pepper, cream, onion):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, veal, bread, pepper, cream, onion. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes