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Beauregard Eggs

A baked dish of eggs, toast, and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Beauregard 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 20 minutes, then drop them in cold water.

  2. Peel and chop the egg whites, and rub the yolks through a sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, add the flour, and cook until smooth.

  2. Gradually stir in the hot milk, adding the bay leaf and onion piece, then remove them.

Assemble and bake

  1. Arrange the buttered toast on a dish and cover with a layer of the sauce.

  2. Add the chopped egg whites, seasoning with pepper, salt, and a dash of Worcestershire sauce.

  3. Layer the yolks on top, adding more sauce and seasoning each layer with salt and pepper.

  4. Set in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 minute before serving.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 structure while the rubbed yolks add richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter and flour
Cooked together they form a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth, stable sauce.
Hot milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and creaminess once thickened.
Bread
Buttered toast gives a sturdy base that soaks up sauce and adds a golden, toasted flavor.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour must be cooked in the melted butter until smooth before the hot milk is added gradually, or the sauce will turn lumpy instead of creamy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, butter, milk, bread, pepper, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, butter, milk, bread, pepper, sauce. 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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