Why it works: Egg and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,765 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Plovers' Eggs, Bouchees of
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Boil the eggs hard and let them cool.
Cut the eggs lengthwise and mask the outsides with smooth forcemeat.
Fry and serve
Dip the coated eggs in a rich batter.
Fry the eggs in boiling fat until golden brown.
Serve piled in a napkin and garnish with fried parsley.
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.
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Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,765 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
- Form the core of the dish, set firm when boiled hard.
- Forcemeat
- Adds a smooth, moist meat layer that surrounds the egg.
- Rich batter
- Forms a crisp golden coating when fried.
- Boiling fat
- Cooks the batter quickly, browning it and crisping the surface.
The step that matters
Frying in boiling fat. The fat must be hot enough to set and brown the batter quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs excess fat and turns greasy before it crisps, and the forcemeat may not cook through.
“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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