Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Eggs with Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the tomato sauce
For the tomato sauce, combine the tomatoes, butter, sugar, salt, pepper, and onion in a saucepan.
Stew the mixture for 20 minutes.
Remove from heat and strain through a sieve.
Thicken the sauce
Melt the remaining tablespoon of butter in a pan.
Sprinkle in the flour and stir until thickened and golden.
Remove from heat.
Stir in the strained sauce and let it boil until rich and thick.
Assemble and heat
Halve the hard-boiled eggs and lay them on a deep plate.
Pour the tomato sauce over the eggs.
Cover the plate and place it over boiling water for 10 minutes.
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.
-
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,633 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Form the main body of the dish and absorb the sauce's flavour as they warm.
- Tomatoes
- Provide the base of the sauce, with acidity and body once stewed and strained.
- Onion
- Adds savoury depth to the sauce as it stews with the tomatoes.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and helps build the flour-thickened base.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce by swelling with heat once cooked in the butter.
The step that matters
Cooking the flour in butter before adding the sauce. Stirring the flour into melted butter and cooking it until golden coats the starch grains in fat, so they thicken smoothly rather than clumping when the strained sauce is added.
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, onion, butter, sugar, pepper, flour):
- Chivefits better
- Leekfits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, onion, butter, sugar, pepper, flour. 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 eggs with tomato sauce recipes
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Cream of Tomato Soup107 recipes
Tomato Bisque61 recipes
Cream Tomato Soup28 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.