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Savory Egg

A baked egg dish with cheese, cream, mustard, paprika, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Savory Egg

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Separate the egg whites from the yolks.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Fold in the well-beaten yolks.

  4. Add the grated cheese, cream, mustard, paprika, and salt, and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and bake until firm.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air for lift, and the yolks set into a firm, custard-like structure when baked.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and fat, and its proteins help the bake set as it heats.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the bake tender rather than dry.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Stiff whites hold the air that gives the bake its lift. Under-beaten whites will not rise well, while over-beaten whites turn grainy and dry, and then the texture suffers.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

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