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Fried Eggs and Tomato Sauce

A simple dish of fried eggs served with seasoned tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Fried Eggs and Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the eggs

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a skillet.

  2. Crack the eggs into the skillet and cook until the whites are set.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the tomato sauce in a separate pot.

  2. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve the fried eggs topped with warm 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. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Eggs
Set into a tender structure as the whites cook, forming the main body of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps prevent the eggs from sticking to the skillet.
Tomato sauce
Provides moisture and acidity that contrast with the rich, savory eggs.

The step that matters

Cook the eggs until the whites are set. Medium heat lets the whites set gently while the yolks stay soft. Higher heat can make the whites brown, toughen, or turn rubbery at the edges.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sauce, pepper, butter. 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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