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Creamed Eggs

Creamed Eggs is a dish of boiled eggs folded into a seasoned milk and flour sauce.

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 ↓

Creamed Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs for about 15 minutes, then shell and cut them in half.

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, combine the milk and flour rubbed smooth with butter.

  2. Cook the mixture until it thickens, then season with pepper, salt, and chopped parsley.

  3. Add enough vinegar to give the sauce a tart taste.

  4. Gently fold in the eggs and serve hot.

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Form the main body of the dish and add substance and protein-based texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a stable sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps rub the flour smooth before it meets the milk.
Vinegar
Adds acidity, giving the sauce the tart taste the recipe calls for.

The step that matters

Cook the milk and flour until it thickens. Flour must be heated long enough for its starch to swell and thicken the milk. Cooking gently in a double boiler helps prevent scorching and lumps, so the sauce stays smooth.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, flour, butter, pepper, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, butter, pepper, vinegar. 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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