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Forcemeat Eggs

Eggs filled with a seasoned yolk and herb mixture, wrapped in pastry, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Forcemeat 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.

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs for 10 minutes, then place them in cold water and remove the shells.

  2. Cut the eggs in half lengthwise and remove the yolks.

Make the filling

  1. Chop the onion, sage, and parsley very fine, then season with pepper and salt.

  2. Pound the yolks until fine and mix in the onion and herbs.

  3. Fill the egg whites with the mixture and reassemble the halves.

Bake and serve

  1. Enclose the eggs in thin pastry, brush with egg white, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 minutes.

  2. Serve with vegetables and sauce.

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. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
The whites form the shell around the filling, and the yolks are mashed into it for body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the yolk filling a smoother, softer texture.
Allinson fine wheatmeal
Forms the thin pastry that encloses the eggs and sets during baking.
English onion
Adds savoury sharpness and aroma to the yolk filling once it is finely chopped.

The step that matters

Enclose the eggs in thin pastry. Pastry must be thin and sealed well so it bakes crisp without leaving the filled egg exposed or underbaked. Brushing with egg white helps the surface brown during baking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sage, parsley, pepper, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sage, parsley, pepper, 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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