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Eggs in Tomato Sauce

Poached eggs served in a seasoned tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 in Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cook the tomatoes until soft, then strain through a colander.

  2. Add sugar, black pepper, coarse sea salt, and cayenne to the strained tomatoes.

  3. Return the mixture to a frying pan and bring to a boil.

Poach and serve

  1. Poach the eggs in the boiling tomato sauce or cook them separately and then add to the sauce.

  2. Serve the eggs in the tomato sauce.

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

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

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

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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

Tomatoes
Break down into the body and liquid of the sauce.
Eggs
Set into soft, tender pieces that enrich the tomato sauce when poached in it.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes, adding sweetness.

The step that matters

Poach the eggs in the boiling tomato sauce. Eggs set through gently at a steady simmer; at a hard boil the whites can turn rubbery and tear apart, while the yolks may overcook. Cooking them separately and adding them to the sauce gives more control.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper, 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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