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Egg Scallops

Egg Scallops are baked eggs mixed with mashed potatoes, rice, capers, and seasonings, topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 851 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Egg Scallops

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the eggs for 20 minutes, then cool and remove the shells.

  2. Chop the eggs roughly and mix them with the mashed potatoes and boiled rice.

  3. Add the capers, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, salt, and melted butter. Mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Spoon the mixture into scallop shells, gem pans, or muffin pans.

  2. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top and add a few bits of butter.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.

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. Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Potato + caperstop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together224 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Rice + caperstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Capers + saucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide structure and body, binding the mixture together as it cooks.
Mashed potatoes
Add moisture and a soft, tender texture to the filling.
Boiled rice
Adds bulk and a light, tender texture to the filling.
Capers
Contribute a sharp, briny flavour that cuts through the richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the topping brown.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. Baking at 400°F sets the egg and starch mixture and browns the buttered crumbs. Removing it too early leaves the filling soft and pale, while overbaking dries it out and toughens the eggs.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, rice, capers, vinegar, sauce, pepper, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, rice, capers, vinegar, sauce, pepper, butter. 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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