Name: Eggs, Salad
Ingredients: 4 hard boiled eggs; 2 medium tomatoes; 1 tablespoon salad oil; 2 teaspoons vinegar; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; 1 ounce butter; 8 croutons

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, Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Slice the tomatoes and soak them in the salad oil and vinegar, adding a sprinkle of pepper and coarse sea salt.
Cut the hard boiled eggs in half and remove the yolks.

Assemble

In a bowl, mix the yolks with anchovy paste, butter, and seasoning to create a filling.
Fill the egg white halves with the yolk mixture.
Place the filled eggs on the tomato slices, which are on top of the croutons.

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.

Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,063 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: The yolks make the creamy filling, and the whites hold it as a shell.
Tomatoes: They add juiciness and fresh, slightly tart flavor under the eggs.
Butter: Adds fat for a richer, smoother yolk filling.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the tomatoes and balances the rich filling.
Croutons: Provide a firm base that holds the tomatoes and eggs upright.

Flavor stand-ins for the tomato

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

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Mustardbetter flavor fit
Shallotbetter flavor fit
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.