Name: Baked Eggs
Ingredients: 6 hard-boiled eggs; grated cheese; ½ pint strong white stock; breadcrumbs; butter

Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Eggs

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

Slice the hard-boiled eggs.
Layer them in a well-buttered baking dish.
Sprinkle each layer with grated cheese.

Assemble and bake

Pour the strong white stock over the layered eggs.
Cover with a mixture of breadcrumbs and grated cheese.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes.
Serve in the same dish.

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.

Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg + cheesetop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,253 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs: Form the main body of the dish and set firm when baked.
Grated cheese: Melts into the layers and browns on top, adding savoury richness.
Strong white stock: Moistens the eggs and cheese so the dish stays tender rather than dry.
Breadcrumbs: Form a crisp, golden topping as they toast in the oven.
Butter: Coats the dish to prevent sticking and adds richness to the bottom layer.

“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.