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Egg Chops

Egg Chops are fried cakes made from boiled egg yolks, whites, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Egg Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Remove the yolks from the hard-boiled eggs and sieve them.

  2. Chop the egg whites finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk over medium heat.

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter with the flour and the raw egg, adding a little warm milk to smooth it out.

  3. Stir the butter mixture into the hot milk, adding pepper, salt, and onion juice if desired.

  4. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens and is smooth, then remove from heat.

  5. Add the prepared egg yolks and whites to the mixture and mix well.

  6. Once cool, shape the mixture into chop shapes.

Coat, fry and serve

  1. Dip each chop in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.

  3. Garnish each chop with a sprig of parsley and serve on a platter with white sauce or green peas.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Provide the bulk and body of the filling, with the chopped whites giving texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a smooth, creamy binder.
Flour
Thickens the warm milk into a sauce that holds the chop shape together.
Raw egg
Adds binding so the mixture sets firm enough to shape and coat.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a softer, smoother mouthfeel.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the mixture thickens. Flour thickens milk only when it is stirred while heating; if left still it can scorch or form lumps, leaving a thin or grainy binder that will not hold the chops together.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, butter, flour, pepper, bread, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, butter, flour, pepper, bread, parsley. 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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