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Eggs with Cheese

A baked egg dish with butter, sea salt, pepper, tomato sauce, and Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Eggs with Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Melt a lump of butter in each shirred egg dish.

  2. When hot, break in an egg and season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Bake and top

  1. Place in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until partly cooked.

  2. Pour over a thick cream tomato sauce.

  3. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese and return to the oven until the egg is fully cooked.

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 + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tomato + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,490 recipes

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

  5. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set to form the main body of the dish as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the eggs release and brown lightly in the dish.
Thick cream tomato sauce
Adds moisture and acidity that contrast with the rich egg.
Grated parmesan cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savory flavor and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Partly cooking before adding the sauce. Eggs set as proteins coagulate with heat. Baking until only partly cooked before adding the sauce and cheese prevents the yolks from overcooking while the topping finishes.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, pepper, cream, sauce, parmesan cheese. 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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