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Scalloped Eggs

A baked dish of eggs in gravy topped with cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Scalloped Eggs

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Pour the gravy into a pie plate and warm it slightly.

Bake and serve

  1. Carefully crack the eggs into the gravy.

  2. Season with pepper and salt, then sprinkle the cracker crumbs evenly over the eggs.

  3. Bake for 5 minutes until the eggs are set.

  4. Serve directly in the pie plate.

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

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

  2. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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
Set into a delicate custard-like texture as they cook and form the body of the dish.
Gravy
Provides moisture and savory flavor, cooking the eggs gently in the pie plate.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, lightly browned topping that contrasts with the soft eggs.

The step that matters

Bake for 5 minutes until the eggs are set. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat, so pulling the dish when the whites are firm but yolks still look soft keeps the texture tender. Overbaking makes eggs rubbery and can dry the dish.

“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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