Name: Eggs a LA Valencienne
Ingredients: 1 cup boiled rice; 1 cup tomato sauce; 2 mushrooms, chopped; ½ teaspoon salt; 1 truffle, chopped; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese; a pinch of grated nutmeg; 8 eggs

Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,900 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Eggs a LA Valencienne

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, combine the rice, tomato sauce, mushrooms, truffle, cheese, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.
Stir over medium heat for 5 minutes.
Set aside over boiling water until needed.
Prepare the eggs as directed for Eggs sur le Plat.
When the eggs are cooked, arrange the rice mixture in 4 portions, placing one at each end and one at each side.
Serve very hot.

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.

Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,900 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + parmesan cheesetop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,199 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together3,065 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,719 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together13,015 recipes

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

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

Flavor stand-ins for the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, tomato, sauce, mushroom, truffle, pepper, parmesan cheese):

Basilbetter flavor fit
Celerybetter flavor fit
Garlicbetter flavor fit
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, tomato, sauce, mushroom, truffle, pepper, parmesan cheese. 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).