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Eggs with Sprue Grass

Eggs cooked with boiled sprue grass, buttered dish, seasoned with powdered sugar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Eggs with Sprue Grass

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the sprue grass in water.

  2. Butter a dish.

  3. Spread the boiled sprue grass over the dish.

Season and bake

  1. Season with powdered sugar, salt, and pepper.

  2. Break the eggs over the grass.

  3. Place the dish in the oven and bake until the eggs are set.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Grass + peppertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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-like texture when heated, forming the dish's main body.
Sprue grass
Forms the base layer that the eggs rest on and adds its own vegetable flavour.
Butter
Greases the dish so the eggs and grass release cleanly and add richness.

The step that matters

Baking until the eggs are set. Egg proteins coagulate with heat, so removing the dish too early leaves runny whites, while overbaking makes the eggs rubbery and dry. Watching for a set white and a still-soft yolk gives the best texture.

“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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