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Eggs Piquant

Eggs served with a boiled sauce of vinegar, salt, butter, and sugar, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Eggs Piquant

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the eggs

  1. In a porcelain-lined kettle, bring water, salt, and vinegar to a boil.

  2. Carefully break in fresh eggs, one at a time, without breaking the yolks.

  3. Once the egg whites are cooked, use a perforated skimmer to remove them and place in cold water.

  4. Transfer the eggs to a large platter.

  5. Strain the boiling liquid and set aside.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a bowl, rub or grate the hard-boiled egg yolks, then mix in butter, sugar, and some of the strained sauce.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and pour it over the eggs.

  3. Garnish with 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. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh eggs
Form the main body of the dish, setting as they poach in the simmering liquid.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Are rubbed or grated into the sauce, thickening it and giving it a rich, smooth body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its sharp, piquant flavour.

The step that matters

Break in the eggs carefully. Eggs dropped into boiling liquid can spread and tear if added too fast or from too high, and broken yolks run into the whites. Adding one at a time, close to the surface, helps each egg hold its shape while the whites set.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg, butter, sugar. 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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