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Eggs, Gratin Style

A baked dish of eggs with anchovies, shallot, parsley, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Eggs, Gratin Style

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 the egg yolks, bread crumbs, butter, anchovies, shallot, parsley, pepper, and salt until well combined.

  3. Spread the mixture over the bottom of a gratin dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven until slightly browned.

  2. Remove from the oven and carefully break the eggs into the dish.

  3. Season the eggs to taste and return to the oven for a few minutes.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Bread + shallottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness to the base layer.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and yolks, giving the base a light, soft body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the base brown in the oven.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that seasons the base.
Eggs
Set in the oven on top of the base to form the main dish.

The step that matters

Returning the eggs to the oven. Whole eggs set from the outside in, so the whites firm before the yolks thicken. Watching closely for a few minutes avoids overcooked, rubbery whites or runny yolks.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, butter, parsley, pepper. 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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