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Baked Eggs with Cheese

A baked egg dish flavored with garlic, pepper, lemon, and Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Baked Eggs with Cheese

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix garlic, Neapolitan pepper, salt, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a pie dish and sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese, pepper, and salt.

  2. Break in the eggs and cover with more grated cheese, pepper, and salt.

  3. Bake until golden brown.

  4. Serve warm.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Garlic + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,893 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set to a firm, tender custard as they cook, forming the body of the dish.
Parmesan cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich eggs and cheese.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that mellows as it cooks.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Eggs continue to set after leaving the oven, so overbaking makes them rubbery and dry. Watch for set whites with yolks still soft.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, lemon, butter, parmesan cheese, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, lemon, butter, parmesan cheese, 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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