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Scalloped Eggs

Scalloped Eggs are poached eggs topped with butter, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and bread crumbs, then browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Scalloped Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Poach the eggs lightly.

  2. Place the poached eggs in a dish.

Dress and brown

  1. Pour warm butter over the eggs.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper, coarse sea salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Strew bread crumbs on top.

  4. Brown the dish before the fire.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Form the body of the dish; lightly poaching sets them so they hold their shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the crumbs and surface brown.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that contrasts with the soft eggs.

The step that matters

Brown the dish before the fire. The eggs are already cooked by poaching, so the browning only needs to color the butter and crumbs. Too much direct heat toughens the eggs and dries the crumbs.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Sagefits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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