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Poached Eggs with Tomato Sauce

Poached eggs served with a tomato sauce made from tomato juice, celery, onion, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Poached Eggs with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cream the butter and flour together in a saucepan.

  2. Add the tomato juice, celery, onion, salt, and red pepper; bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in the baking soda and milk.

Poach and serve

  1. Prepare the eggs in a poacher.

  2. Drop the eggs into hot water.

  3. Serve the poached eggs on buttered toast, surrounded by the tomato sauce.

  4. 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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into soft, tender portions when poached, forming the main body of the dish.
Tomato juice
Provides the liquid base and acidity that give the sauce its flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and with flour forms the base that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquids into a smooth sauce body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the sauce, mellowing the tomato sharpness.
Baking soda
Neutralises some tomato acidity, which mellows the sauce and reduces sharpness.

The step that matters

Drop the eggs into hot water. Water that is too vigorously boiling breaks up the whites, while water that is too cool lets them spread and set poorly. Gently simmering water helps the whites coagulate around the yolks.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, celery, pepper, butter, flour, milk, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, pepper, butter, flour, milk, egg. 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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