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Nest of Eggs, or Eggs in a Nest

Baked shredded egg whites arranged in a ring with a center of seasoned yolk and meat mixture, topped with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Nest of Eggs, or Eggs in a Nest

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the nest

  1. Cut the whites of the hard-boiled eggs into strips the length of the egg.

  2. Lay the strips in a tin with a little butter.

  3. Coat them well, turning them in the oven.

Make the filling

  1. Mince the cooked white meat or poultry.

  2. Pound it with the yolks to a paste.

  3. Moisten the mixture with sauce, cream, or gravy.

  4. Season it well.

  5. Flour your hands.

  6. Shape the mixture into egg-sized pieces.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a fireproof dish, arrange the shredded whites to form a ring.

  2. Pile the shaped mixture in the center.

  3. Pour a thick sauce over it.

  4. Set the dish over boiling water until the eggs are heated through.

  5. Serve.

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. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Meat + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,167 recipes
  5. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

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

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
Whites form the ring structure and yolks bind the filling into a paste.
Butter
Fat that coats the egg-white strips and helps them brown in the oven.
Cooked white meat or poultry
Provides the bulk and savory flavor of the filling.
Sauce, cream, or gravy
Moisture that keeps the filling soft and cohesive.

The step that matters

Set the dish over boiling water until the eggs are heated through. Gentle heating from simmering water warms the filling without drying it out or making the proteins toughen. Overheating can cause the yolk-based paste to become grainy or rubbery, so the dish should be heated just until warmed through.

“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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