Why it works: Egg and spinach are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,323 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Poached Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Fill a stew pan with water and bring it to a boil.
Crack an egg into a cup and gently slide it into the boiling water.
When the egg white is set, use an egg slice to lift it out.
Place the poached egg on toast or prepared spinach.
Trim the egg whites to look round and keep the dish warm until all eggs are poached.
Serve hot.
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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Egg + spinachtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,323 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Egg whites set around the yolk when heated, forming the poached egg's body.
The step that matters
Sliding the egg into the boiling water. Gently lowering the egg into water that is already boiling helps the white set in a compact shape instead of spreading and breaking apart.
“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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