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Scotch Egg

A boiled egg wrapped in buttered toast, seasoned with parsley, pepper, and sea salt.

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

Scotch Egg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Butter a small mold.

  2. Sprinkle the mold with parsley and seasoning.

  3. Drop the egg into the mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the mold in a pan of hot water until the egg sets.

  2. Cut the toast into shape with a cake cutter.

  3. Place the egg in the center of the toast.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Sets into a firm, tender cushion that holds its shape on the toast.
Butter
Adds richness and keeps the egg from sticking to the mold.
Toast
Provides a crisp, sturdy base that supports the set egg.

The step that matters

Place the mold in a pan of hot water until the egg sets. Gentle, indirect heat from hot water cooks the egg slowly, so the white sets evenly while the yolk stays soft. Boiling or direct high heat can make the white rubbery and the texture uneven.

“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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