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Eggs Sur Le Plat with Asparagus Tips

Eggs cooked on stewed asparagus tips served on a buttered plate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,338 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Eggs Sur Le Plat with Asparagus Tips

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Butter a plate and cover the bottom with stewed asparagus tips.

  2. Heat the plate with asparagus tips.

  3. Break the eggs onto the asparagus and cook until done.

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. Asparagus + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,338 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when heated, forming the main structure and body of the dish.
Asparagus tips
Provide the base layer, adding vegetable flavor and moisture under the eggs.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping to coat the plate and enrich the flavor.

The step that matters

Break the eggs onto the asparagus and cook until done.. Eggs set through a narrow range of heat; cooking too hot or too long makes them tough and rubbery, so cook gently until just set.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Asparagusthe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter. 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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