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Devilled Eggs Nest

A baked nest of deviled eggs topped with white sauce and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Devilled Eggs Nest

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil eggs for 15 minutes.

  2. Shell and cut them lengthwise.

  3. Remove yolks and mash them.

  4. Mix in devilled ham and enough melted butter to shape the mixture.

  5. Form balls the size of the original yolks and refill the egg whites.

Assemble and bake

  1. With the remaining mixture, create a nest on a baking dish.

  2. Arrange the eggs in the nest and pour white sauce over them.

  3. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

Eggs
The whites set into structure while the mashed yolks form the creamy filling.
Devilled ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and body to the yolk filling.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the yolk mixture hold its shape and stay moist.
White sauce
Provides moisture and a creamy coating that keeps the dish from drying as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Refill the egg whites with the yolk mixture. The mixture needs enough melted butter to hold its shape. If it is too soft, the balls will slump and spill out of the whites during baking.

“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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