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Egg Patties

Egg patties made from finely chopped hard‑boiled eggs mixed with breadcrumbs, thyme, pepper, salt, and gravy, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Egg Patties

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Chop the hard-boiled eggs very fine.

  2. Mix the chopped eggs with bread crumbs, thyme, pepper, salt, and gravy. Add tomato if desired.

  3. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  4. Line patty pans with pastry.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the lined pans with the egg mixture, cover, and bake until golden.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Thyme + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Form the main body of the filling and set into a firm, sliceable texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the gravy and help the filling hold its shape.
Thick brown gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour so the filling does not dry out in the oven.
Pastry
Forms the shell that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Chop the hard-boiled eggs very fine. Fine chopping gives an even, cohesive filling that binds with the crumbs and gravy; coarse pieces leave gaps and a crumbly patty that falls apart when served.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, thyme, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, thyme, 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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