Why it works: Vinegar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,922 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓
Poached Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Poach
Fill a deep frying pan three-quarters full of boiling water.
Add salt and vinegar to the water.
Break each egg into a saucer, then slip each one into the water.
Cook the eggs until the white is set.
Remove the pan from the heat.
Serve
Lift out the eggs with a perforated skimmer and place them on buttered toast.
Serve immediately.
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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Vinegar + eggtop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,922 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Vinegar and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 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
- Their proteins set when heated, forming the poached egg's firm white and soft yolk.
- Vinegar
- Its acidity helps the egg white coagulate more quickly and hold together in the water.
- Buttered toast
- Its crisp, buttered base gives the soft egg a contrasting texture and a rich flavour.
The step that matters
Cook the eggs until the white is set. Egg white begins to set at about 60°C and firms as it heats, while the yolk stays runny. Removing the eggs too early leaves the white slack and watery, and cooking too long hardens the yolk.
“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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