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Fricasseed Eggs

A dish of sliced hard-boiled eggs coated in flour, beaten eggs, and bread crumbs, then fried in lard and garnished with fried parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricasseed Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Peel and slice the hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Season bread crumbs with salt and pepper.

  3. Beat the 2 raw eggs in a bowl.

  4. Sprinkle flour over the sliced eggs.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the floured eggs in the raw eggs, then coat with bread crumbs on both sides.

  2. Heat lard in a pan and fry the coated eggs until golden brown.

  3. Fry parsley in the lard for garnish.

Serve

  1. Serve the fricasseed eggs garnished with fried parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Form the main body of the dish, holding their shape through coating and frying.
Raw eggs
Act as a binder that helps the flour and bread crumbs stick to the sliced eggs.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried in lard.
Flour
Dries the egg surface so the raw egg coating adheres evenly.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and adds fat that browns the coating.

The step that matters

Frying the coated eggs until golden brown. The coating needs enough hot fat to brown quickly and crisp before the coating soaks up grease. Lard that is not hot enough lets the coating absorb fat and turn soggy, while overly high heat can scorch the crumbs before the egg is fully heated through.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

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