Name: Poached Eggs
Ingredients: eggs; water; coarse sea salt; toast; butter; pepper; watercress or parsley (for garnish)

Why it works: Pepper and watercress work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 983 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Poached Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Place muffin rings in a frying pan and drop an egg into each ring.
Add enough boiling water to cover the eggs and a little coarse sea salt.
Cook slowly on the side of the range for 10 to 15 minutes.
Carefully remove the eggs using a pancake turner or wide-bladed knife onto a round piece of toast.
Remove the rings and season with a little salt, pepper, and a piece of butter.
Serve on a platter garnished with watercress or parsley.
Before toasting the bread, cut the slices into rounds with a large biscuit cutter.

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.

Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together983 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg + watercresstop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together638 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + watercresstop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together842 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).