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Fried Eggs

A simple fried egg served with tomato, shallots, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fried Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat oil in an omelette pan until it begins to smoke slightly.

  2. Break the egg onto a plate and season it.

Fry the eggs

  1. Slide the egg into the pan.

  2. Quickly cover the yolk with the solidified portions of the white.

  3. Drain the egg on a piece of stretched linen.

  4. Repeat with additional eggs as needed.

Assemble and serve

  1. Prepare halved tomatoes with a pinch of chopped shallots.

  2. Place a fried egg on each tomato.

  3. Garnish with fried 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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Tomato + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together583 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Egg + shallottop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,380 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
Form the main body of the dish and set into a firm white around a runny yolk when fried.
Tomato
Adds moisture and a fresh, slightly acidic contrast to the rich egg.
Oil
Conducts heat to cook the egg quickly and keeps the white from sticking to the pan.

The step that matters

Quickly cover the yolk with the solidified portions of the white. Egg white sets as it heats, so covering the yolk early with set white helps protect it and keep it intact and rounded. Waiting too long lets the white spread and the yolk break or flatten.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, shallot, parsley. 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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