Name: Ceufs a LA Creole
Ingredients: stewed tomatoes; slices of toast; eggs; sardines; black-butter sauce

Why it works: Tomato and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,468 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

Cook the stewed tomatoes until the watery part has evaporated.
On a hot dish, layer the stewed tomatoes.
Trim the toast slices and place them on top of the tomatoes.
Poach the eggs and place one on each slice of toast.
Prepare the black-butter sauce and pour it over the eggs.
Heat the sardines and arrange them around the outer edge of the dish, one for each egg.

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.

Tomato + saucetop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together5,468 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + saucetop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together15,317 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together118,511 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Tomato + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together6,890 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Tomato + eggtop 23% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together5,162 recipes

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

Butter and sauce share little aroma chemistry, yet 15,317 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the tomato

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

Asparagusbetter flavor fit
Shallotbetter flavor fit
Chivebetter flavor fit
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, 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).