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Ragout of Eggs with Ham or Bacon

A stuffed egg dish where hard-boiled eggs are filled with a ragout of meat, breadcrumbs, and seasonings, then fried and served on ham or bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Ragout of Eggs with Ham or Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Hard boil the eggs.

  2. Once cold, shell and cut them in half.

  3. In a bowl, beat the yolks with the white meat, bread crumbs, parsley, eschalot, anchovy, cayenne, salt, nutmeg, butter, and mushroom ketchup until well mixed.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill the egg white halves with the mixture.

  2. Beat the yolk of an egg and dip each filled half into it.

  3. Fry in butter or brown in a Dutch oven until golden.

Serve

  1. Serve on slices of ham or bacon.

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. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide the main body of the ragout, with yolks binding the filling and whites holding it.
White meat from dressed fowl or veal
Adds savory bulk and a tender, meaty texture to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the filling hold together with a soft texture.
Butter
Adds richness to the filling and browns the coated halves in the pan.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savory, umami flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Frying until golden. Egg halves are already cooked, so the goal is only browning. Moderate heat in butter browns the egg yolk coating and bread crumbs without drying or toughening the filling.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, meat, bread, parsley, anchovy, pepper, 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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