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To Steam Eggs

A simple dish of eggs steamed with butter and salt, served with fried ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

To Steam Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter a dish.

  2. Break 6 eggs into the dish without breaking the yolks.

  3. Strew small pieces of butter over the eggs.

Steam and serve

  1. Set the dish over a pan of boiling water and cover with another dish.

  2. Steam for about 4 minutes until the whites are set.

  3. Sprinkle a little salt over the eggs and serve with fried ham or a similar dish.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set with gentle steam to form a soft, tender custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel as it melts over the eggs.

The step that matters

Steam until the whites are set. Egg whites set at moderate temperatures while yolks stay softer. Overcooking under steam can make the eggs rubbery and dry, so check at the time given and stop once the whites are firm.

“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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