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Broiled Eggs

Eggs broiled on buttered toast, seasoned with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Broiled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the toast

  1. Toast half slices of bread according to the number of eggs needed.

  2. Butter the toasted bread.

Cook and serve

  1. Carefully break an egg and place one on each piece of toast.

  2. Hold a hot salamander or shovel over each egg until the white is set.

  3. Sprinkle each egg with a little coarse sea salt, white pepper, and a few drops of lemon juice.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set with heat to form the main body of the dish, with the white firming while the yolk stays soft.
Bread
Provides a crisp toasted base that holds the egg above it.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the toast and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Hold the salamander or shovel over each egg until the white is set. Egg whites set at moderate heat while yolks stay runny, so too little heat leaves the white raw and too much can overcook the yolk or dry the surface. Keep the heat steady and watch for the white to turn opaque.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, butter, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, butter, lemon. 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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