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Hens Nest

A nest of eggs filled with blanc mange, served with lemon rind and custard, topped with a butter-sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Hens Nest

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Make a small hole at one end of each egg. Empty the shells.

  2. Fill the shells with blanc mange.

  3. Let the blanc mange stiffen and cool.

  4. Carefully remove the shells.

Prepare the lemon strips

  1. Boil the thin strips of lemon rind in water until tender.

  2. Preserve the lemon strips in sugar.

Assemble and make the sauce

  1. Fill a deep dish halfway with jelly or cold custard.

  2. Place the filled eggs in the dish.

  3. Arrange the lemon strips around the eggs to resemble a nest.

  4. Beat together the butter, sugar, and egg yolk for the sauce. Stir in the boiling water.

  5. Let the sauce come to a boil.

  6. Flavor the sauce to taste 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. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Shells serve as moulds, and the set blanc mange gives the nest its form.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the sauce.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce and gives it a rich, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps preserve the lemon strips.

The step that matters

Let the sauce come to a boil. Egg yolk thickens when heated but can curdle or scramble if it overheats, so the sauce should be heated gently and stirred to keep it smooth.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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