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Swiss Eggs

A baked egg dish with grated cheese and butter, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Swiss 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter two ramekin dishes.

  3. Place 1 teaspoon of grated cheese at the bottom of each ramekin.

Assemble and bake

  1. Carefully break an egg into each ramekin.

  2. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of grated cheese on top of each egg.

  3. Add a small piece of butter and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Bake until the eggs are lightly set, then 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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  5. Egg + cheesetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 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
Set into a delicate custard-like texture as they cook, forming the body of the dish.
Grated cheese
Melts into the eggs and adds savory flavor and a little browning on top.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor and helps keep the eggs moist in the ramekins.

The step that matters

Bake until the eggs are lightly set. Eggs keep cooking from residual heat after leaving the oven. Pulling them when the whites are just set and the yolks still soft keeps the texture tender instead of rubbery and dry.

“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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