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Shirred Eggs

A dish of beaten egg whites with yolks baked in a buttered plate, seasoned with pepper, sea salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Shirred Eggs

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Butter a sauce plate.

  2. Separate the eggs, keeping the yolks intact.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

Shape and bake

  1. Pile the stiff egg whites irregularly on the sauce plate.

  2. Make two nests in the whites and slip in the yolks.

  3. Bake in a cool oven (300°F / 150°C) until the whites are lightly browned.

Season and serve

  1. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a bit of butter, then serve.

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).

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

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

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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
Whites set into a light, airy structure while the yolks stay soft and rich in the nests.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour and helps the whites brown lightly on the plate.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Stiff whites trap air and hold their shape in the oven. If they are under-beaten they spread and set flat, and over-beaten whites turn grainy and collapse.

“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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