Why it works: Parsley and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Eggs with Caper Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the eggs
Boil 7 eggs for 10 minutes.
Peel and slice the boiled eggs.
Mix parsley with finely sifted bread crumbs, pepper, and salt.
Beat the yolk of 1 remaining egg.
Dip the egg slices in the beaten yolk.
Roll the dipped egg slices in the crumb mixture.
Melt 2 ounces of butter in a sauté pan.
Fry the coated egg slices until pale brown.
Keep the fried eggs warm in a cool oven.
Make the caper sauce
Mix flour smoothly in a little milk.
Stir the flour mixture into the remaining milk.
Chop part of the capers.
Add the chopped capers, whole capers, and 1 ounce of butter to the milk.
Season the mixture with salt and pepper.
Stir until it boils.
Beat the yolk of the last egg in a bowl.
Add the beaten yolk to the boiling sauce.
Mix well with a fork.
Serve
Pour the sauce around the eggs.
Serve.
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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Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,550 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,024 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Form the main dish, and their yolks enrich the sauce for body and a silky texture.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when the egg slices are fried.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat for frying the coating and enriching the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it heats and boils.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, thickened by the flour and enriched by the yolk.
- Capers
- Add a sharp, acidic bite that cuts through the richness of the sauce.
The step that matters
Adding the beaten yolk to the boiling sauce. Egg yolk thickens and enriches when heated gently, but if the sauce is too hot or the yolk is added without stirring, it can scramble into lumps. Mixing well with a fork as it goes keeps the sauce smooth.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, bread, milk, flour, capers):
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Parsleythe original
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Tarragonfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, bread, milk, flour, capers. 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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