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Stuffed Eggs in a Nest

Stuffed eggs with deviled ham filling, baked with white sauce and buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Stuffed 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.

Prepare the eggs

  1. Cut hard boiled eggs in half lengthwise and remove yolks.

  2. Mash the yolks and mix with deviled ham and melted butter until it can be shaped.

  3. Form the mixture into balls the size of the original yolks and refill the egg whites.

  4. Shape the remaining mixture into a nest.

Assemble and bake

  1. Arrange the stuffed eggs in the nest and pour white sauce over them.

  2. Sprinkle with buttered crumbs and bake at 350°F (175°C) until the crumbs are brown.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Ham + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce 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
Provide the structure and body of the dish, with yolks mashed into the filling.
Deviled ham
Adds savory flavor and salty richness to the yolk filling.
Melted butter
Binds the yolk mixture so it holds its shape and adds richness.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy coating over the eggs as they bake.
Buttered crumbs
Brown in the oven to form a crisp, golden topping.

The step that matters

Shape the yolk mixture until it can be formed. The yolk mixture must be mashed and bound with butter until it holds its shape. If it is too loose, the balls and nest will slump during baking.

“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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