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Eggs with Tomatoes

Fried eggs served with sautéed tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Eggs with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Slice the tomatoes and fry them in the butter for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove the tomatoes and drop in the eggs.

  4. Fry the eggs until the whites are set.

  5. Pour a little of the butter from the pan over each egg.

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

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Eggs
Set into a firm structure as the whites cook, forming the main body of the dish.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and a light acidity that balances the richness of the butter and eggs.
Butter
Carries the frying, adding richness and browning to the tomatoes and eggs.

The step that matters

Fry the eggs until the whites are set. Cook over gentle heat so the whites set fully while the yolks stay soft. High heat toughens and browns the whites too quickly, and undercooked whites stay runny and unappealing.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, 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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