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Baked or Shirred Eggs

Baked or Shirred Eggs are eggs baked in butter with salt and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Baked or 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

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

  2. Prick several holes in the large end of each egg with a large pin.

  3. Break each egg into a cup, being careful not to break the yolk.

  4. Place the eggs in a hot buttered dish suitable for serving.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt on each egg.

  2. Bake for 10 minutes, until the white is firm.

  3. Add a little butter on top and serve immediately.

  4. Garnish each egg with thin strips of breakfast bacon.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a firm, tender white and a yolk that stays soft while baking.
Butter
Adds richness and a little flavour to the dish and the eggs.
Breakfast bacon
Adds salty, savoury flavour and a contrasting texture as a garnish.

The step that matters

Break each egg into a cup first. Pouring the egg into a cup lets you slip it gently into the dish without breaking the yolk. Eggs cooked this way set evenly, and a broken yolk spreads through the white.

“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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