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Eggs, Stuffed

Hard-boiled eggs filled with a butter, ham, and parsley mixture, topped with breadcrumbs and butter, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Eggs, Stuffed

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 the filling

  1. Cut the hard-boiled eggs in half lengthwise and remove the yolks.

  2. Pound the yolks with butter, chopped ham, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  3. Refill the egg whites with the yolk mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and small pieces of butter.

  2. Brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  3. 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Form the rich, creamy filling that holds the stuffed eggs together.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the yolk filling and helps the topping brown.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven.
Ham
Adds savory flavor and a little texture to the yolk filling.

The step that matters

Brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven. Browning depends on surface heat reaching the bread crumbs and butter. Too little heat leaves the topping pale and soft, while too long can scorch the crumbs before the filling warms through.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, ham, pepper, bread):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, ham, pepper, bread. 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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