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Shirred Eggs

A baked egg dish with a thin batter of breadcrumbs, meat, and broth, topped with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Shirred Eggs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, chopped chicken or ham, salt, and enough cream or broth to create a thin batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter the shirrer dish and pour in a little of the batter.

  2. Break an egg into the dish and cover it with the remaining batter.

  3. Bake in the oven until the egg is set.

  4. For a variation, prepare half the batter, add the eggs, and cook until set.

  5. Remove from the oven and top with hot white or tomato sauce before serving.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

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

  4. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set to form the firm, cooked centre of the dish as the batter bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the cream or broth and give the batter body so it holds around the egg.
Cream or broth
Moistens the crumbs into a thin batter and keeps the mixture tender while baking.
Cooked chicken or ham
Adds savoury flavour and a little substance to the batter.

The step that matters

Baking until the egg is set. Egg proteins set with heat, so underbaking leaves the white runny while overbaking makes it tough and rubbery. Check that the white is opaque and the yolk has thickened as desired.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, chicken, cream, butter, egg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, chicken, cream, butter, egg. 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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