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Ragout of Eggs with Ham or Bacon

A ragout made from hard‑boiled eggs, white meat, bread crumbs, herbs, and seasonings, served on ham or bacon slices.

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, then cool, shell, and cut them in half.

  2. In a bowl, beat the yolks with an equal amount of white meat, bread crumbs, parsley, eschalot, and anchovy.

  3. Season with cayenne, salt, nutmeg, butter, and mushroom ketchup; mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Fill the egg white halves with the mixture.

  2. Dip each filled half in the beaten egg yolk.

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

  4. 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

Hard-boiled eggs
Provide the bulk of the dish, with yolks binding the filling and whites forming the shell.
White meat from dressed fowl or veal
Adds protein body and a tender, meaty texture to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the filling so it holds its shape when fried.
Beaten egg yolk
Coats the filled halves, helping them brown and form a crisp, set surface when cooked.
Anchovy
Adds a savoury, salty depth to the filling.

The step that matters

Dip each filled half in the beaten egg yolk. Egg yolk coats the filling so it stays sealed while frying. If the coating is thin or uneven, the filling can leak into the pan and the surface will brown unevenly.

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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