Name: Salpicon of Eggs
Ingredients: Yolks of eggs; Whites of eggs; Tongue; Truffles; Mushrooms; Rich Velouté sauce; Fancy buttered toast

Why it works: Truffle and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salpicon of Eggs

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Steam yolks and whites of eggs separately until set.
Let them cool, then cut into slices.
Use a column cutter to stamp out the egg slices along with tongue, truffles, and mushrooms.
Mix everything into a rich Velouté sauce.
Serve garnished with fancy buttered toast.

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.

Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,900 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Egg + truffletop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,604 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,480 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + mushroomtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,987 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Truffle + saucetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,490 recipes