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Shirred Eggs

Shirred eggs are eggs gently cooked in a water bath, finished with butter, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter small ramekins.

  2. Carefully drop an egg into each ramekin, avoiding breaking the yolk.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the ramekins in a pan of boiling water.

  2. Cook until the egg white is set.

  3. Top each egg with a bit of butter and a dash of pepper and salt.

  4. 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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. 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 into a firm white around a soft yolk when gently heated, forming the dish's body.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel, and keeps the ramekins from sticking.

The step that matters

Cook until the egg white is set. Egg whites begin to set around 60°C (140°F) while yolks stay fluid until much hotter. Stopping when the white is opaque and firm, but the yolk still jiggles, gives a runny yolk; overcooking turns the yolk firm and dry.

“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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