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Ragout of Eggs and Bacon

A savory dish of boiled eggs filled with a seasoned mixture of chicken or veal, herbs, anchovy, and breadcrumbs, served with bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Ragout of Eggs and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs for 10 minutes, then transfer them to cold water.

  2. Peel the eggs and cut them in half.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, pound the yolks with the shredded chicken or veal, parsley, anchovy, shallot, butter, mushroom ketchup, cayenne, bread crumbs, and mace or allspice until well combined.

Fill, brown and serve

  1. Fill the egg white halves with the mixture.

  2. Brush the filled eggs with beaten egg yolk.

  3. Brown the eggs in a Dutch oven.

  4. Serve the eggs on a bed of cooked bacon or ham.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  4. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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, with yolks becoming the rich filling and whites holding it.
Cooked chicken or veal
Adds savoury body and texture to the yolk filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the filling feel smooth and moist.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the filling hold together with a softer texture.
Anchovy
Adds deep savoury flavour that enriches the filling without tasting distinctly fishy.
Mushroom ketchup
Contributes concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Brown the eggs in a Dutch oven. Browning relies on the Maillard reaction, which needs dry surface heat. Overcrowding or excess moisture will steam the eggs instead of browning them, leaving them pale and less flavourful.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, chicken, anchovy, shallot, butter, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, chicken, anchovy, shallot, butter, mushroom, ketchup. 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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