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Eggs a LA Golden Rod

A toast topped with a white sauce, chopped egg whites, and yolks, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Eggs a LA Golden Rod

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Make a thin white sauce by melting butter, adding flour, and gradually whisking in milk and seasonings.

  2. Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs.

  3. Chop the whites finely and add one-third to the white sauce.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut the toast into circular slices and arrange them on a platter.

  2. Pour the white sauce over each slice of toast.

  3. Pile the chopped egg whites on the toast, leaving a small space in the center.

  4. Force the yolks through a fine sieve and place them in the center of each slice of toast.

  5. Pour the remaining white sauce around the edge of the platter and garnish with parsley and toast points.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the melted butter and milk into a smooth white sauce.
Butter
Provides fat that carries flavor and forms the base of the sauce with the flour.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the sauce, which sets its thin, pourable texture.
Eggs
Chopped whites add texture and body to the sauce, while sieved yolks add richness and color.

The step that matters

Whisk the milk into the butter and flour gradually. Adding the milk slowly while whisking lets the flour starch disperse evenly and swell smoothly. Pouring it in all at once causes lumps that are hard to remove, leaving the sauce grainy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, butter, milk, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, butter, milk, pepper. 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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