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Breakfast

Breakfast Dishes

A baked egg cup made with butter, Parmesan, egg yolk, mustard, cream, cayenne, white pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Breakfast Dishes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Pound the yolk with butter, Parmesan, raw egg yolk, dry mustard, thick cream, cayenne pepper, white pepper, and coarse sea salt until well combined.

Bake

  1. Fill cups made from egg whites with the mixture, smoothing the tops with a knife dipped in cold water.

  2. Sprinkle grated cheese on top and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes without browning.

Serve

  1. Spread remaining yolk mixture on the bottom of a serving dish, arrange the baked egg cups on top, and garnish each with a small piece of beetroot or pickled gherkin.

  2. Serve with chili vinegar.

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. Parmesan cheese + cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and fat that gives the filling a rich, firm body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, making the filling smooth and creamy.
Raw egg yolk
Binds the filling and gives it a rich, custard-like texture when set.
Thick cream
Adds moisture and fat, keeping the filling soft and creamy rather than dry.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the yolk and cheese.

The step that matters

Bake for 10 minutes without browning. Egg mixtures set from the proteins coagulating under gentle heat. Too much heat or time makes them curdle, toughen, and brown on top, so they should be checked early.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parmesan cheese, egg, mustard, cream, pepper, cheese. 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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