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Shirred Eggs

A simple dish of eggs cooked in butter in small ramekins, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Shirred Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter small ramekins or cups and break one egg into each.

  2. Arrange the ramekins in a perforated pan or a broad wire basket.

Cook

  1. Set the pan in boiling water on the stove.

  2. Cook until the egg whites are set.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the ramekins from the water, add a bit of butter, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  2. Serve immediately and eat directly from the ramekins.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set proteins form the whole dish, turning from liquid to a tender, firm white around the yolk.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel, and helps keep the egg from sticking to the ramekin.

The step that matters

Cook until the egg whites are set. Egg white proteins coagulate between roughly 60 and 85°C, so the whites firm while the yolk stays runny. Overcooking in boiling water can tighten the yolk and make the texture rubbery.

“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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