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Creamy Egg

A custard-like egg mixture cooked gently and served over dry toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Creamy Egg

Ingredients

Directions

Make the eggs

  1. Beat the eggs slightly in a bowl.

  2. Add the butter, salt, pepper, and milk to the eggs.

  3. Cook the mixture in a double boiler.

  4. When the egg coagulates around the sides and bottom, draw it away with a spoon.

  5. Continue until all the egg is cooked, being careful not to overcook to avoid curdling.

Serve

  1. Serve the creamy egg on dry toast.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Coagulate as they cook, setting the mixture into a soft, creamy body.
Butter
Adds fat, giving the eggs a richer flavour and smoother texture.
Milk
Dilutes the egg proteins, keeping the custard softer and more tender as it sets.

The step that matters

Continue until all the egg is cooked, being careful not to overcook. Egg proteins set at moderate heat and tighten as they get hotter. Overcooking squeezes out moisture and causes curdling, so the mixture should be gently stirred and removed from the heat while still soft.

“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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