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Beauregard Eggs

A layered egg dish with toast, milk, butter, corn starch, and seasonings.

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 ↓

Beauregard Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove the shells, chop the whites finely, and sieve the yolks.

Make the white sauce

  1. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.

  2. Rub the butter and corn starch together, then add to the boiling milk.

  3. Stir in the chopped egg whites, salt, and pepper.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the toast on a hot dish and cover with a layer of the white sauce.

  2. Add a layer of the yolks, followed by the remaining whites and yolks.

  3. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then place in the oven for 1-2 minutes before serving.

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. Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

  3. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  5. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites and yolks supply the bulk, protein structure and richness of the dish.
Milk
Milk forms the base of the white sauce, giving it body and a mild, creamy flavour.
Corn starch
Starch swells in hot milk and thickens the liquid into a smooth white sauce.
Butter
Butter adds fat, which gives the sauce a softer mouthfeel and richer taste.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and corn starch to the boiling milk. Starch clumps if it is not evenly dispersed before it meets hot liquid. Mixing it smoothly with the butter first helps it hydrate and thicken the milk evenly, without lumps.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, corn, milk, butter, pepper):

  1. Lima beansfits about as well
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Almondfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, corn, milk, butter, pepper. 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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