Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Poached Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Poach
Break an egg into a cup.
Gently place it into boiling water.
Cook until the white is set, about 10 minutes.
Remove with a slotted spoon.
Serve
Place on toast and butter or spinach.
Serve hot.
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 + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg
- Egg white proteins set with heat, forming the firm, rounded body of the poached egg around the yolk.
The step that matters
Gently place the egg into boiling water. Egg white proteins set with heat. Lowering the egg gently keeps the white together around the yolk, so it does not spread and tear in the water.
“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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