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Egg-cups and Anchovies

Egg cups made from stale bread filled with anchovy custard and topped with creamed eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Egg-cups and Anchovies

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut thick rounds of stale bread.

  2. Mark a circle in the center with a small cutter, pressing halfway through.

  3. Dig out a hollow along this line to hold about 1 tablespoon of custard or soft filling.

  4. Brush the rounds of bread with butter.

  5. Let them dry and crisp slightly in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

Make the creamed eggs

  1. In a saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon of butter.

  2. Add ½ cup of cream with a pinch of baking soda until hot.

  3. Stir in 5 well-beaten eggs.

  4. Cook until it forms a soft paste.

Fill and serve

  1. Half fill the cups with minced anchovies.

  2. Add a few drops of lemon juice.

  3. Top with the creamed eggs.

  4. Garnish each cup with a piece of parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 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

Thick stale bread
Forms the cup that holds the filling and crisps in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread brown and crisp.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness so the eggs set softly.
Eggs
Set with gentle heat to form the creamy topping that holds the cup together.
Anchovies
Provide a salty, savoury flavour that anchors the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the creamed eggs until a soft paste forms. Eggs thicken as their proteins set with heat. Cooking gently and stopping at a soft paste keeps the topping creamy; overcooking makes it grainy and dry.

“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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