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Eggs a LA Turk

A poached egg served on buttered toast with a sauce of chicken liver, mushroom, onion, and truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Eggs a LA Turk

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Brown the chicken liver and mushroom in butter for 1 minute.

  2. Add chopped onion, salt, pepper, and flour; beat until smooth.

  3. Stir in sherry, brown stock, lemon juice, and chopped truffles to make a sauce.

Serve

  1. Place the poached egg on the buttered toast and serve the sauce around it.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 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

Chicken liver
Browns in butter to add savory, meaty flavor to the sauce.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the butter and pan juices into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Browns with the liver and mushroom and adds richness to the sauce.
Brown stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savory depth.
Poached egg
Provides a soft, rich centerpiece that the sauce is served around.

The step that matters

Beat the flour into the pan mixture until smooth. Flour must be fully blended into the fat and juices so no lumps form when liquid is added. Lumps are hard to remove later and make the sauce grainy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, liver, mushroom, butter, pepper, flour, sherry):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, liver, mushroom, butter, pepper, flour, sherry. 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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