Name: Shirred Eggs
Ingredients: Butter; 2 eggs per person; Pepper; Coarse sea salt

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

Butter
2 eggs per person
Pepper
Coarse sea salt

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Butter small dishes, one for each person.

Assemble

Break 2 eggs into each dish, ensuring the yolks remain whole and separate.
Sprinkle sparingly with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Add a small piece of butter on top of each egg.

Bake and serve

Bake in the oven until the whites are set.
Serve immediately 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.

Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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 whites and rich yolks form the entire body of the dish.
Butter: Adds richness and keeps the eggs from sticking to the dish while baking.

The step that matters

Bake until the whites are set. Egg whites set between about 140°F and 160°F, while yolks stay runny only if not overcooked. Pulling the dish when the whites are just opaque and firm keeps the yolks soft, since extended heat makes the yolks thick and chalky.

“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.