Why it works: Egg and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,991 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Poached Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Poach the eggs
Bring water to a boil.
Add coarse sea salt to taste.
Drop the eggs carefully into the boiling water.
Remove the pot from heat and cover.
Let the eggs sit for 5 to 8 minutes.
Serve
Serve the poached eggs on toast, topped with slightly thickened chicken broth.
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.
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Egg + chickentop 30% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,991 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Proteins in the white set in hot water, holding the egg together while the yolk stays soft.
- Chicken broth
- Adds savoury liquid that moistens the toast and flavours the dish.
The step that matters
Drop the eggs carefully into the boiling water.. The egg white begins to set on contact with heat. A gentle drop lets the white wrap around the yolk and keep its shape, instead of scattering into loose threads.
“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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