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Dundee Eggs

Dundee Eggs are boiled eggs coated in a ham and breadcrumb mixture, then chilled and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Dundee Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs for 25 minutes, then place them in cold water for 1 hour.

Make the coating

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped ham, bread crumbs, milk, cayenne pepper, and prepared mustard.

  2. Bind the mixture with the raw egg.

Coat, chill and fry

  1. Peel the boiled eggs and coat them with the ham mixture.

  2. Chill the coated eggs in a cold place for 1 hour.

  3. Fry the eggs in hot deep fat for 3 minutes.

  4. Serve cold.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Boiled eggs form the firm centre, and the raw egg binds the coating.
Cold chopped ham
Provides savoury flavour and body to the coating mixture.
Fine bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the mixture and help it hold together around the eggs.
Milk
Moistens the coating so it stays soft and spreadable before frying.
Raw egg
Sets when fried, binding the coating firmly to the boiled egg.

The step that matters

Coat, chill and fry. The coated eggs must be chilled so the binding egg firms up; otherwise the coating can slide off or break open in hot fat.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, ham, bread, milk, 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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