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Baked Eggs

Baked eggs topped with bread crumbs and cheese, baked in a pie plate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Baked 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 the base

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in hot milk for 20 minutes.

  2. Stir in butter, egg yolk, cheese, broth, onion, and parsley.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie plate and cover.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 6 minutes.

  2. Remove the cover, break eggs on top, and sprinkle with fine crumbs.

  3. Bake for an additional 3 minutes and serve in the dish.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Soak up the hot milk to form a soft, thick base that holds the custard together.
Hot milk
Provides moisture and softens the crumbs into a creamy, spoonable mixture.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the base as it heats.
Eggs
Set on top of the base during baking, giving a firm white and a softly cooked yolk.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and some browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Bake the eggs for the timed period. Egg whites set firm while yolks stay soft only within a short window; overbaking turns the yolks chalky and dry, while underbaking leaves the whites runny.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, butter, egg, cheese, onion. 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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