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Eggs in Cases

Baked eggs in small ramekins with parsley, bread, cheese, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Eggs in Cases

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Butter 4 small ramekin cases and sprinkle a little pepper, salt, and chopped parsley in the bottom of each.

Assemble and bake

  1. Carefully drop an egg from the shell into each case.

  2. Sprinkle a little grated bread and cheese over each egg, then place a small bit of butter on top of each egg.

  3. Bake in the oven for about 3 minutes until the eggs are set.

Serve

  1. Serve in the cases.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (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 firm but tender custard as they bake, forming the body of the dish.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on the surface, adding savoury flavour and a golden top.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and adds light texture to the crust on top of the eggs.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the surface brown and the flavour carry.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Eggs keep cooking from residual heat after leaving the oven, so pulling them once the whites are set but yolks still soft keeps the texture tender rather than rubbery.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, bread, cheese, butter. 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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