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Baked Eggs

Baked eggs with ham, breadcrumbs, milk, and butter, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Baked Eggs

Ingredients

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mix the chopped ham and breadcrumbs in equal proportions.

  3. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  4. Moisten the mixture with milk and melted butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Half fill patty pans with the mixture.

  2. Break an egg over the top of each filled patty pan.

  3. Sprinkle with fine breadcrumbs.

  4. Bake until the eggs are set and serve hot.

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. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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
Set and bind into a soft, sliceable custard around the filling as they cook.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the milk and butter to give the filling body, and brown lightly on top.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the filling.
Milk
Moistens the breadcrumb mixture so it stays tender rather than dry.
Salted butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Bake until the eggs are set. Egg proteins firm as they heat, and overbaking squeezes out water and makes them rubbery. Pull them as soon as the whites are opaque and the yolks still look soft.

“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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