Skip to main content
Main

Eggs a LA Matelottb

Eggs poached in white stock served on fried bread croutons with a sauce of butter, herbs, mushrooms, lemon, anchovies, and olives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and bread match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 22,584 recipes mention both. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Poach and prepare the eggs

  1. Poach the eggs in white stock.

  2. Drain and trim the poached eggs.

  3. Dish the eggs on fried bread croutons.

Make the sauce

  1. Chop the onion and shallots finely.

  2. Fry the chopped onion and shallots with a little butter in a stewpan.

  3. Add parsley, bay leaf, and thyme to the stewpan.

  4. Strain off the butter.

  5. Add rich brown sauce and return it to the stewpan.

  6. Add sliced mushrooms and lemon juice.

Finish and serve

  1. Place the dish with the eggs in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for a few minutes.

  2. Sauce over the dish.

  3. Garnish with fillets of anchovies and stoned olives.

  4. Serve.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Egg + breadtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together22,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Bread + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Shallot + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,718 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Shallot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and form the main body of the dish, providing richness when cooked gently in stock.
Rich brown sauce
Adds savoury depth and moisture that coats the eggs and croutons.
Onion and shallots
Build a sweet, aromatic base when softened slowly in butter.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a tender texture to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its fat.

The step that matters

Poach the eggs in white stock. Eggs cooked at too high a heat or for too long turn rubbery and break apart, so the stock should be kept at a gentle simmer and the eggs timed carefully.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, shallot, butter, parsley, thyme, sauce):

  1. Chivebetter flavor fit
  2. Leekbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, shallot, butter, parsley, thyme, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

You might also like

Illustration of Brown BreadIllustrationBrown Bread461 recipesIllustration of Lemon SauceIllustrationLemon Sauce236 recipesIllustration of White BreadIllustrationWhite Bread80 recipesIllustration of Bread OmeletteIllustrationBread Omelette60 recipes