Name: Baked Eggs
Ingredients: 6 eggs; ¼ teaspoon salt; 2 cups cheese sauce

Why it works: Cheese and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,987 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Baked Eggs

Ingredients

6 eggs
¼ teaspoon salt
2 cups cheese sauce

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).
Grease a baking dish and pour half of the cheese sauce into it.

Assemble

Drop the eggs into the sauce and sprinkle with salt.
Cover the eggs with the remaining cheese sauce.
Place the baking dish in a pan of boiling water.

Bake

Bake until the eggs are set.

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.

Cheese + saucetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,987 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + cheesetop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,253 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + saucetop 39% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,895 recipes

Egg and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,895 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 into a firm, tender custard-like structure as they cook, giving the dish its body.
Cheese sauce: Provides moisture and richness, cushioning the eggs so they cook gently and stay tender.

The step that matters

Place the baking dish in a pan of boiling water. This water bath surrounds the dish with gentle, even heat. Eggs cook through proteins that set around 160°F to 180°F, so the surrounding water keeps the eggs from overcooking, toughening or curdling at the edges.

“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.