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Eggs Spanish

Fried eggs topped with a tomato, onion, and parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 Spanish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine canned tomatoes, onion, parsley, salt, and pepper in a pan.

  2. Simmer the mixture for a few minutes.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the eggs in hot butter, basting them as they cook.

  2. Place the fried eggs on a platter and pour the tomato mixture over them.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide the main body of the dish, setting as they fry and holding the tomato sauce.
Canned tomatoes
Supply moisture and acidity that form the sauce spooned over the eggs.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the sauce.
Butter
Provides fat for frying the eggs, adding richness and browning.

The step that matters

Fry the eggs in hot butter, basting them as they cook. Hot butter sets the egg whites quickly while basting spreads warm fat over the surface, cooking the tops without overcooking the yolks. Heat that is too low leaves whites runny; heat that is too high makes them brown and tough at the edges.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, parsley, pepper, butter, 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.

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