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Eggs, Fricassee of

Eggs served in a white sauce with croutons and parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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, Fricassee of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the eggs until hard-boiled.

  2. Cut the eggs into thick slices.

  3. Reserve the yolk of one egg for garnish.

  4. Prepare the white sauce.

  5. Season the sauce to taste.

Make and serve

  1. Add the sliced eggs to the sauce.

  2. Heat the mixture thoroughly.

  3. Arrange the mixture on a hot dish.

  4. Sprinkle parsley over the mixture.

  5. Sprinkle the sieved yolk over the mixture.

  6. Garnish with croutons.

  7. Serve immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 and rich flavour of the dish, with sliced whites and yolk.
White sauce
Supplies moisture and a creamy coating that binds the sliced eggs together.
Bread croutons
Add crisp, toasted contrast to the soft sauce and eggs.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture thoroughly. Heating the sliced eggs in the sauce warms them through without boiling the sauce, which can curdle or thicken unevenly. Gentle, even heat keeps the sauce smooth while the eggs warm.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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