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Eggs in a Nest

A baked dish of whipped egg whites with yolks and cream, topped with salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Eggs in a Nest

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the nest

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and mix in the salt.

  2. Grease a baking dish with butter and pour in the egg whites.

  3. Make 6 small holes in the egg whites and place an egg yolk in each hole.

  4. Pour 1 tablespoon of cream over each yolk.

  5. Dust with salt and pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until the egg whites are set, about 15-20 minutes.

  2. Garnish with parsley 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 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

Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that holds the shape of the nest while baking and setting.
Egg yolks
Set into the holes to stay soft and runny while the whites firm around them.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the yolks as they cook.

The step that matters

Bake until the egg whites are set. Whites set at a lower temperature than yolks, so the whites can firm while the yolks stay runny. Overbaking makes the yolks firm and dry, while underbaking leaves the whites wet and unset.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, cream, 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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