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Blancmange Eggs for a Lien’s Nest

Eggs filled with a sweet rice and cream blancmange, served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Blancmange Eggs for a Lien’s Nest

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the blancmange

  1. Beat 2 eggs and add them to the cream along with the sugar and rice.

  2. Dissolve the isinglass in boiling water and add to the mixture.

  3. Boil the entire mixture.

Fill the shells

  1. Make a tiny hole at the end of each of the remaining 6 eggs and carefully empty the insides.

  2. Wash and drain the shells, then fill them with the blancmange mixture.

  3. Place the filled shells in a deep dish filled with sand to keep them steady.

Set and serve

  1. Once cold and firm, break off the shells.

  2. Line a dish with cream, cut the candied peel into fine strips, and place the eggs on top.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Rice + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

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

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Egg yolks and whites set the blancmange and form the shell-shaped mould around it.
Isinglass
A gelatine-like setting agent that firms the mixture as it cools.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the blancmange.
Ground rice
Thickens the mixture so it holds its shape when set.
Sugar
Sweetens the blancmange and balances the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Emptying and filling the shells. Making the hole small and emptying the shells carefully keeps them intact, so they can hold the filling without cracking. Cooling the filling fully before breaking off the shells lets it set firm enough to keep its shape.

“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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