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Eggs and Bacon Ragout

Eggs filled with a mixture of fowl or veal, parsley, anchovy, shallot, butter, mushroom ketchup, cayenne, bread crumbs, and allspice, beaten yolk, bacon or ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 Ragout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs for 10 minutes, then transfer them to cold water.

  2. Peel the eggs and cut them in half.

Make and fill

  1. In a bowl, pound the yolks with the chopped fowl or veal, parsley, anchovy, shallot, butter, mushroom ketchup, cayenne, bread crumbs, and allspice until well combined.

  2. Fill the egg white halves with the mixture.

Brown and serve

  1. Brush the filled eggs with beaten egg yolk and brown them in a Dutch oven.

  2. Serve the eggs on a bed of crispy bacon or ham.

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. Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 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
Provide the structure of the dish, with whites holding the filling and yolks blended into it.
Cooked fowl or veal
Adds savory meaty body and richness to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the filling hold a soft, spreadable texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier filling texture.
Anchovy
Contributes deep savory flavor that enhances the umami of the filling.

The step that matters

Browning the filled eggs. Brushing with beaten yolk and browning in a Dutch oven gives color and a glossy surface. Browning happens through the Maillard reaction, which needs dry, fairly high heat, so the eggs should be watched to avoid scorching or drying out.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, veal, anchovy, shallot, butter, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, veal, anchovy, shallot, butter, mushroom, ketchup. 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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