Name: Scalloped Eggs
Ingredients: 1 cup bread crumbs; ½ cup cream or rich milk; 4 hard-boiled eggs, sliced; 2 tablespoons butter, cut into bits; white pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; additional butter for moistened bread crumbs

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 ↓

Scalloped Eggs

Ingredients

1 cup bread crumbs
½ cup cream or rich milk
4 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
2 tablespoons butter, cut into bits
white pepper, to taste
coarse sea salt, to taste
additional butter for moistened bread crumbs

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

Moisten the bread crumbs with cream or rich milk.

Layer and bake

Layer half of the moistened bread crumbs in the bottom of a buttered dish.
Add a layer of sliced hard-boiled eggs on top.
Dot with bits of butter and season with white pepper and coarse sea salt.
Repeat the layers until the dish is filled.
Cover the top with fine bread crumbs moistened with butter.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

Serve

Serve with cream sauce.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg + white peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,312 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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 cream and form the soft body that holds the layers together.
Cream or rich milk: Adds moisture and richness so the crumbs stay tender while baking.
Hard-boiled eggs: Provide the main filling, adding body and a creamy, savoury flavour when layered.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, and helps the top crumbs brown in the oven.