Name: White Sauce for French Eggs
Ingredients: four tablespoonfuls flour; two tablespoonfuls butter; one pound of mushrooms; one ounce of butter; one teaspoonful of vinegar; one bunch of parsley; two ounces of butter; one gill of stock; one pound of tomatos; three tablespoonfuls of chile; a slice of mashed garlic; a quart of boiling water; a tablespoonful of flour; two mixed; eight eggs; two green onions; six eggs; six tomatos; two onions; one dessertspoonful of flour; two sections; half pepper; four eggs; vinegar; salt; parsley; nutmeg; pepper

Why it works: Tomato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,076 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

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.

Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,076 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,700 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,719 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour: Thickens the butter into a smooth roux that gives the sauce body.
Butter: Enriches the sauce and combines with flour to form the thickening base.
Vinegar: Adds a touch of acidity that brightens the sauce's flavour.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into boiling milk (or water) until the right consistency is reached.. Adding the flour and butter paste to liquid while it is hot and stirred helps it disperse without lumps. The starch then thickens as it heats, so the sauce reaches the right consistency only if the liquid is kept at a boil while the mixture is added.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, mushroom, vinegar, parsley, garlic, egg):

Shallotfits better
Chivefits better
Spinachfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, mushroom, vinegar, parsley, garlic, egg. 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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Mushroom	1/2 cup sliced (35g)	15
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Vinegar	1 tbsp (15ml) distilled	3
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Water	not in our table	0

White Sauce for French Eggs