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Fricasseed Eggs

A dish of sliced boiled eggs topped with a corn starch‑butter sauce and served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fricasseed Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs for 5 minutes, then dip them in cold water.

  2. Shell the eggs and cut them into thick slices.

  3. Lay the egg slices on hot toast.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Mix the corn starch and butter together, then stir into the boiling milk to create a smooth sauce.

  3. Add pepper and coarse sea salt to taste, then pour the sauce over the eggs.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide the main body of the dish, with their protein setting firm when boiled.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess and richness.
Corn starch
Thickens the boiling milk into a smooth sauce as its starch gelatinises.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the sauce, giving it a smooth, rich mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir the corn starch into the boiling milk. Cornstarch must be fully dispersed, ideally first mixed with the butter, then stirred into boiling milk so it thickens evenly without lumps. Stirring constantly while it boils activates the starch and produces a smooth sauce.

“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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