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Blancmange Eggs

Eggs hollowed and filled with blancmange, served with lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,366 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Blancmange Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggshells

  1. Make a small hole at the end of each egg.

  2. Carefully empty the contents.

  3. Wash the eggshells and drain them.

Fill and set

  1. Fill the shells with blancmange.

  2. Place the filled shells in a deep dish filled with rice or barley to keep them steady.

  3. Once cold, gently break the shells.

  4. Peel off the shells.

Serve

  1. Cut the lemon peel into fine shreds.

  2. Lay the shreds in a glass dish.

  3. Place the eggs in the glass dish.

  4. Serve them with pink cream around them.

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. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Egg + ricetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Empty shells act as moulds that give the blancmange its egg shape.
Blancmange
Sets as it cools, holding the egg shape once the shell is removed.
Lemon peel
Adds a bright aromatic flavour that contrasts with the sweet blancmange.

The step that matters

Gently break the shells once cold. The blancmange must be fully set before the shell is removed, or it will slump and lose its shape. Breaking the shell gently prevents cracks from tearing the delicate surface.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Vanillafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, rice. 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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