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Mushrooms and Shirred Eggs

Mushrooms and shirred eggs are baked in a ramekin with milk, water, salt, roux, egg yolk, and topped with a fresh egg, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mushrooms and Shirred Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the mushroom base

  1. Stew the mushrooms in boiling milk and water with salt for five minutes, ensuring enough liquid to prevent burning.

  2. Remove from heat, stir in the white roux, and let cool slightly while still warm.

  3. Beat in the yolk of the raw egg, season with pepper, salt, and onion juice.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill small ramekins or pate pans three-quarters full with the mixture.

  2. Break a fresh egg on top of each, sprinkle with bread crumbs, dot with butter, and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Bake in a shallow pan of hot water at 400°F (200°C) for about eight minutes.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main body and earthy flavor of the filling as they soften in milk.
White roux
Thickens the milk and mushroom liquid so the filling holds together around the egg.
Egg yolk
Enriches the base and helps it set into a smooth, creamy custard when baked.
Fresh egg
Sets on top of the filling, forming the soft, runny centre of the dish.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the base, helping it turn creamy as it cooks.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. Baking in a shallow pan of hot water surrounds the ramekins with gentle, even heat. This slows setting so the base turns creamy rather than rubbery or curdled, and the top egg cooks without overcooking the filling.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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