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Broiled Eggs

A dish of eggs baked on toast, finished with sour orange juice, salt, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,402 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Broiled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make small slices of toast equal to the number of eggs.

  2. Butter each slice and place them on a platter.

Cook and serve

  1. Break each egg into a cup and place it on a slice of toast.

  2. Set the dish before the fire to cook the eggs to your desired doneness.

  3. Once done, squeeze sour orange juice over the eggs, season lightly with coarse sea salt and cayenne, 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. Orange + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Butter + orangetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Egg + orangetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

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

Egg and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,696 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 and firm up with heat, forming the main body of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the toast and helps it brown lightly.
Slices of toast
Provide a crisp base that holds the cooked eggs.
Juice of a sour orange
Adds acidity that brightens the rich eggs and butter.

The step that matters

Cooking the eggs to desired doneness. Eggs continue to firm after leaving the heat, and the proteins set quickly once hot. Checking early and watching the whites and yolks keeps the yolk runny if you want it, while avoiding rubbery whites.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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