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Tarragon Eggs

A baked dish of sliced hard‑boiled eggs topped with a tarragon‑infused white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,547 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Tarragon Eggs

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.

Prepare

  1. Boil the eggs for 7 minutes, then slice them.

  2. Grease a pie dish with butter and layer the sliced eggs inside.

Make the sauce and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the hot white sauce with the egg yolks, tarragon, and tarragon vinegar.

  2. Pour the mixture over the eggs in the pie dish.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with croutons around the dish.

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. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sauce + tarragontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together566 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Tarragon + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,572 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Hard-boiled eggs
Form the main body of the dish, giving it substance and a firm, sliced structure.
White sauce
Supplies moisture and a creamy binding that holds the dish together.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and help it thicken and set as it bakes.
Tarragon
Adds its distinctive aniseed-like aroma and flavour.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds a light acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Mixing the yolks into the hot white sauce. If the sauce is too hot when the yolks go in, they can scramble instead of blending smoothly. Stirring steadily while adding the yolks helps keep the sauce smooth and lets it thicken evenly in the oven.

Swap the tarragon

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

  1. Tarragonthe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sauce, vinegar, 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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