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Bread

Emergency Eggs

Bread with egg, cheese, and butter baked until the egg white sets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Emergency Eggs

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. Cut slices of bread about 1 inch thick and scoop out a hollow in the center of each.

  2. Grate some cheese and season it with coarse sea salt and paprika.

  3. Moisten the cheese mixture with milk and spread it on the bread.

Bake and serve

  1. Crack an egg into each piece of bread without breaking the yolk.

  2. Dot with butter and bake at 350°F (175°C) until the egg white is 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms a sturdy base that holds the cheese and egg while baking.
Eggs
Set when heated, forming the soft cooked centre of each piece.
Grated cheese
Melts and binds with milk, adding richness and savoury flavour.
Milk
Moistens the cheese so it spreads and stays tender rather than drying out.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavour on the surface.

The step that matters

Crack the egg without breaking the yolk. The yolk sits in a shallow hollow, so a broken yolk can spill and mix with the cheese. Egg white sets as it heats, while the yolk stays runny if kept intact and baked only until the white is set.

“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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