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Poached Eggs Massena

Poached eggs served on warm artichoke bottoms with Béarnaise and Portugaise sauces, topped with poached marrow, ox-tongue, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 524 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Poached Eggs Massena

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Heat the artichoke bottoms until warm.

  2. Slightly hollow the artichokes if necessary.

Assemble

  1. Garnish each artichoke with 1 tablespoon of Béarnaise sauce.

  2. Coat each egg with Portugaise sauce and place on top of the artichoke.

  3. Top each egg with a slice of poached marrow and a slice of ox-tongue.

  4. Sprinkle a little chopped parsley on each slice of marrow.

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. Artichoke + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together524 recipes

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

  2. Artichoke + saucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together462 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Artichoke + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichoke bottoms
Form the base that holds the egg and sauces.
Eggs
Provide the soft, runny yolk that enriches the sauces and dish.
Béarnaise sauce
Adds rich fat and a tangy, herbal flavour to the artichoke.
Portugaise sauce
Adds tomato-based acidity and moisture around the egg.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, sauce, egg. 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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