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Egg Gems

Egg Gems are baked eggs set in a seasoned meat and breadcrumb mixture, topped with cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Egg Gems

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, mix together chopped meat, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, butter, and milk.

  3. Grease gem pans with butter and fill them with the meat mixture.

Top and bake

  1. Carefully break an egg on top of each filled pan. Season the eggs with a little salt and pepper. Sprinkle fine cracker crumbs on top.

  2. Bake for 8 minutes and serve hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into the top of each filled pan, forming the cooked centre that holds the dish together.
Chopped meat
Forms the main body of each gem, providing savoury flavour and substance.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid from the meat mixture, helping it hold together and stay tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps keep the meat mixture moist and the pans from sticking.
Milk
Adds moisture to the meat mixture, keeping it softer as it bakes.

The step that matters

Breaking the egg onto the filled pan. Break each egg carefully so the yolk stays intact on top of the meat mixture. Eggs set as they bake, so a broken yolk or overfilled pan can cause uneven cooking and spreading.

“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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