Why it works: Cream and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓
Eggs in Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pour the cream into a shallow earthen dish and place it in a kettle or pan of boiling water.
Once the cream is hot, break in as many eggs as the dish can hold.
Cook
Cook until the eggs are well set, basting them occasionally with the hot cream.
Alternatively, place a spoonful of cream in individual dishes, break an egg into each, and cook in the oven or steamer over boiling water until the egg white is set.
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.
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Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
- Cream
- Gently heated, it bastes the eggs and keeps the set whites moist and tender.
- Eggs
- Their proteins set with gentle heat, forming the body of the dish.
The step that matters
Cook until the eggs are well set, basting them occasionally with the hot cream.. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures, so gentle heat from the surrounding water and cream cooks the whites evenly. Too much heat would toughen them and make the cream curdle or separate.
“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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