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Plovers' Eggs a LA Mersea

Plovers' eggs are boiled, halved, topped with caviar or lobster cream, battered, fried, and served with salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Plovers' Eggs a LA Mersea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Place the eggs in cold water and bring to a boil.

  2. Boil for eight minutes, then transfer to cold water immediately.

  3. Once cooled, shell the eggs and cut them in half lengthwise.

Make and fry

  1. Spread each half with caviar or lobster cream.

  2. Dip the halves in batter.

  3. Fry the battered halves in hot fat until golden brown.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve hot on a fancy paper or doily.

  2. Garnish with sprigs of parsley.

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. Egg + caviartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Caviar + peppertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Caviar + parsleytop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together48 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

Plovers' eggs
Provide the main body of each bite, set firm by boiling before frying.
Caviar or lobster cream
Adds a rich, salty, seafood flavour spread onto the cut egg halves.
Batter
Forms a crisp, golden coating that protects the egg during frying.

The step that matters

Fry the battered halves in hot fat until golden brown. Fat must be hot enough to crisp the batter quickly; if it is too cool, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy before browning.

“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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