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Poached Eggs in Butter

Bacon-wrapped eggs poached and fried in butter, served with parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Poached Eggs in Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the eggs

  1. Poach the eggs by breaking them into a pan of boiling water.

  2. Once cooked, trim the eggs neatly.

Wrap and fry

  1. Wrap each egg in a slice of bacon.

  2. Dip the bacon-wrapped eggs in thick butter.

  3. Fry the eggs until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve on white paper and garnish with parsley.

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. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 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
Set to a soft, cohesive center that forms the core of each bite.
Bacon
Adds savory flavor and fat, and browns during frying for crisp texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the coating brown when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the eggs until golden brown. Frying a bacon-wrapped, already poached egg in fat must brown the outside without overheating the yolk. Too much heat dries or cooks the egg through. Brown quickly over moderate heat so the coating crisps while the center stays soft.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar. 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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