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Plovers' Eggs a L'epicure

Plovers' eggs served on buttered bread with beetroot, cress, lemon, prawns, lettuce, and aspic jelly, topped with forcemeat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Beetroot and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Plovers' Eggs a L'epicure

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the plovers' eggs for 10 minutes.

  2. Cool the eggs, shell them, and brush with forcemeat preparation.

  3. Melt a little butter in a saucepan.

Assemble and serve

  1. Warm the brown gravy and pour it over the eggs.

  2. Serve the eggs on small bread slices spread with Montpellier butter, topped with beetroot and cress.

  3. Squeeze lemon juice over each egg.

  4. Garnish with shelled prawns, lettuce, and chopped aspic jelly.

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. Beetroot + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

  4. Beetroot + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together745 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Plovers' eggs
Provide the rich, delicate egg centre that forms the body of the dish.
Forcemeat
Coats the eggs with a savoury, binding layer of breadcrumbs, suet and seasoning.
Brown gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth, coating the eggs with a warm sauce.
Montpellier butter
Adds fat and herby richness to the bread base beneath the eggs.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich eggs, butter and gravy.

The step that matters

Cool the eggs, shell them, and brush with forcemeat preparation.. Eggs boiled for 10 minutes are fully set, but they must be cooled before shelling or the delicate white tears and the coating will not adhere evenly. The forcemeat sticks best to a cool, dry surface.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, bread, beetroot, lettuce, beef, parsley):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, bread, beetroot, lettuce, beef, parsley. 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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