Name: Poachep Eggs with Cream Tomato Sauce and Cheese
Ingredients: 5 slices of bread; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¾ cup strained tomatoes; ½ cup milk; grated cheese

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Poachep Eggs with Cream Tomato Sauce and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Toast the bread slices until golden.
Melt the butter in a pan, then add the flour and salt, stirring until frothy.
Gradually add the strained tomatoes and milk, mixing well.
Pour the sauce over the toasted bread.
Top each slice with a poached egg and sprinkle with grated cheese.
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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

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

Swap the tomato

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

Potatofits better
Asparagusfits about as well
Chivefits about as well
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, flour, milk, cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.