Skip to main content
Breakfast

Eggs a LA Bomaine

Eggs à la Bomaine is a baked egg dish with yolks, whites, cream, pepper, salt, cayenne, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 118,511 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

6 patty pans
Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Break the eggs, separating the yolks from the whites.

  3. Butter six small patty pans.

Assemble

  1. Place one yolk and 1 teaspoon of cream in each pan; season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and cayenne.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and season them.

  3. Spread a proportionate amount of the beaten whites over the yolks.

  4. Shape neatly with a knife or spoon.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 15 minutes.

  2. Dust with salt and grated cheese, and serve very 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Egg + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together118,511 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Cheese + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,955 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

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

  4. Cream + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,649 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,861 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks set to a custard-like filling while the whipped whites form a light, airy structure.
Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they trap air and give the dish its light, puffed texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the yolk, keeping it soft against the baked whites.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savory flavor and a golden surface.

The step that matters

Spreading the beaten whites over the yolks. Whites that are not stiffly beaten will deflate and spread into the yolk, so the dish loses its puffed shape and the yolk can become overcooked before the whites set.

“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

Illustration of Rice GruelIllustrationRice Gruel28 recipesIllustration of Peptoned Milk GruelIllustrationPeptoned Milk Gruel9 recipes