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Fricasseed Eggs

Hard‑boiled eggs filled with a mixture of yolks, ground tongue or ham, parsley, butter, mustard, and served with a hot gravy.

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

Fricasseed Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the eggs hard, then cut them in half crosswise and remove the yolks.

  2. Chop the yolks finely or rub them into a paste with ground tongue or ham, minced parsley, melted butter, and made mustard.

  3. Fill the egg whites with the mixture and place them close together in a deep covered dish, open ends up.

Add the gravy and serve

  1. In a saucepan, heat the veal gravy or chicken broth to boiling with chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and cream.

  2. Pour the hot gravy over the eggs, cover, and let them stand for five minutes before serving.

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 + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
The whites hold the filling, and the yolks give the filling its body and richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the yolk mixture become smooth and spreadable.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the hot gravy, softening its flavor and texture.
Made mustard
Adds sharp, acidic flavor that cuts through the richness of the yolks and butter.

The step that matters

Pour the hot gravy over the eggs and cover. The gravy must be fully boiling so it is hot enough to warm the filled eggs through. Covering the dish traps heat and steam, so the eggs warm gently and the gravy stays moist.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, ham, parsley, butter, veal, pepper, cream):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, ham, parsley, butter, veal, pepper, cream. 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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