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Fricassee d’CEufs

A French-style egg dish with boiled eggs, béchamel sauce, and fried bread croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,019 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Fricassee d’CEufs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs for 15 minutes.

  2. Place the boiled eggs in cold water.

  3. Remove the shells.

  4. Cut the eggs in half crosswise.

  5. Take out the yolks for garnish.

Make the sauce

  1. Peel the shallot and finely chop the shallot.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  3. Add the shallot and fry until golden.

  4. Add the béchamel sauce and bring to a boil.

  5. Mix in the cream.

  6. Once hot, add the egg whites.

  7. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  8. Stir gently or shake the pan to avoid breaking the egg slices.

  9. Keep on the heat until hot.

Plate and serve

  1. Warm the yolks in a little thin white sauce.

  2. Place the warmed yolks in the center of a dish.

  3. Arrange the egg whites around the yolks neatly.

  4. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

  5. Garnish with croutons before serving.

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. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites form the tender slices and yolks make the central garnish.
Butter
Fat for frying the shallot and carries flavour through the sauce.
Béchamel sauce
Flour-thickened white sauce that gives the dish its body and coating.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the sauce.
Shallot
Softened in butter to add a mild, sweet onion-like aroma.

The step that matters

Keep the egg slices intact while heating. Egg whites are delicate and firm up with heat, so they tear or turn rubbery if stirred vigorously or boiled. Gentle stirring or shaking the pan and keeping the heat moderate keeps the slices whole and tender.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

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