Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Eggs Vtth Sorrel
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sorrel
Boil the sorrel until tender, then strain and press out the water.
In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the sorrel, stirring for a few minutes.
Serve
Serve the sorrel on buttered toast and top with poached eggs.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Sorrel + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together652 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sorrel + breadtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together99 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sorrel
- Provides the main leafy body and a tangy, lemony flavour.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavour through the sorrel and toast.
- Eggs
- Give a soft, runny yolk that enriches the dish when broken into the sorrel.
- Bread
- Offers a crisp, sturdy base that holds the sorrel and eggs.
The step that matters
Pressing out the water from the sorrel. Sorrel holds a lot of water after boiling. Leaving it in dilutes the flavour and makes the sorrel soggy on the toast, so squeezing it dry keeps the mixture thick and concentrated.
Swap the sorrel
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, egg):
- Nutmegfits better
- Parsleyfits about as well
- Capersfits about as well
- Sorrelthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, 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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