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Escaloped Eggs

Escaloped eggs are boiled eggs mixed with a white sauce, parsley, and topped with breadcrumbs and butter bits, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Escaloped Eggs

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs for 15 minutes in simmering water.

  2. Transfer the eggs to cold water to cool, then peel them.

  3. Chop the egg whites.

Make the sauce

  1. Thicken milk with butter and flour.

  2. Season to taste.

  3. Cream the yolks with the cream.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix the chopped egg whites, yolks, and sauce together.

  2. Stir in the parsley.

  3. Place the mixture in a baking dish.

  4. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and butter bits.

  5. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until browned delicately.

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 + breadtop 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites and yolks set into the custard-like filling and give it body.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce that binds the eggs together.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the filling together.
Butter
Adds richness to the sauce and helps the topping brown.
Cream
Adds fat and softness to the yolk mixture, making it richer and smoother.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with butter and flour. The flour must be cooked smoothly into the butter and milk so the sauce thickens evenly without lumps. Lumps or an underthickened sauce will make the filling loose and uneven after baking.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, butter, flour, cream, bread. 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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