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Beauregard Eggs

Layered egg dish with toast, white sauce, and yolks, baked briefly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Beauregard Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs in hot water for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove the shells, chop the whites finely, and sieve the yolks.

Make the white sauce

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Rub the butter and corn starch together, then add to the boiling milk.

  3. Stir in the chopped egg whites, salt, and pepper.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the toast on a hot dish and layer with the white sauce, followed by the yolks, then the remaining whites, and finally the remaining yolks.

  2. Sprinkle the top with a little salt and pepper, then place in the oven for 1-2 minutes and serve.

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

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

  2. Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  5. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites set into the sauce while yolks add richness and a creamy texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Corn starch
Thickens the boiling milk into a smooth sauce as its starch gelatinises.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and helps it feel smooth on the palate.
Toast
Provides a crisp, absorbent base that holds the sauce and eggs.

The step that matters

Adding the corn starch to the boiling milk. Corn starch must be rubbed with butter and added to boiling milk so it disperses evenly. Added to cold or unstirred milk, it clumps and the sauce turns lumpy instead of smooth.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Lima beansfits about as well
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Almondfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, corn, butter, 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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