Skip to main content
Main

Fried Eggs

Fried eggs cooked in fat, optionally seasoned with salt, vinegar, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Fried Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the eggs

  1. Heat enough fat in a frying pan to nearly cover the eggs.

  2. Break the eggs into a cup.

  3. Gently slip the eggs into the hot fat.

  4. Do not turn the eggs.

  5. Dip the hot fat over the eggs.

  6. For beaten eggs, strain them through a coarse colander into hot fat.

  7. Drain the fat and serve on toast or with bacon.

Make the parsley vinegar sauce

  1. Add more fat to the pan.

  2. Let it brown.

  3. Stir in an equal quantity of vinegar.

  4. Let the mixture boil briefly.

  5. Stir in chopped parsley.

  6. Pour over the eggs.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set in the hot fat to form the main body of the dish.
Butter, olive oil, or cottonseed lard
Fat that cooks the eggs and, when browned, adds rich flavor to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the browned fat.

The step that matters

Do not turn the eggs. Turning breaks the delicate set white and disturbs the yolk. Leaving the eggs undisturbed in hot fat lets the white set firmly while the yolk stays intact.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Dillfits about as well

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

More fried eggs recipes

with Bacon 8Breaded 4and Bacon 4with Tomatoes 4with Tomato Sauce 3 See all 85 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes