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Fried Eggs a LA Bonne Femme

A dish of sliced hard‑boiled eggs coated in beaten egg and breadcrumbs, fried in clarified butter and garnished with fried parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fried Eggs a LA Bonne Femme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Beat the raw egg in a bowl and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Dip each egg slice in the beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat clarified butter in a pan and fry the coated egg slices until golden brown.

  2. Drain on a cloth and serve on a folded napkin, garnished with fried parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 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

Hard-boiled eggs
Provide the main filling, sliced and served warm as the dish's body.
Raw egg
Beaten coating that binds the bread crumbs to each egg slice.
White bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when fried, adding texture contrast.
Clarified butter
Fries the coating at a high heat and adds rich flavor and browning.

The step that matters

Frying the coated slices. Clarified butter has no milk solids, so it can reach frying heat without burning. Frying at a steady heat until golden sets the egg coating and browns the crumbs, while a too-hot pan can scorch the crust before the coating is cooked through.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Sagefits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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