Name: Eggs Poached with Sauce of Minced Ham
Ingredients: 2 or 3 slices of boiled ham; 1 gherkin; 1 small piece of onion; 1 tablespoon chopped parsley; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); juice of ½ Seville orange or lemon

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Eggs Poached with Sauce of Minced Ham

Ingredients

2 or 3 slices of boiled ham
1 gherkin
1 small piece of onion
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
juice of ½ Seville orange or lemon

Directions

Make the sauce

Mince the ham, gherkin, onion, and parsley together.
In a saucepan, combine the minced mixture with pepper and salt, and stew for 15 minutes.

Poach and serve

Poach the eggs as directed until the whites are set but yolks remain runny.
Serve the sauce hot over the poached eggs.
Squeeze the juice of half a Seville orange or lemon over the eggs before serving.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + orangetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together680 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + orangetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,402 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled ham: Provides savory, meaty flavor that forms the base of the sauce.
Gherkin: Adds sharp acidity and a tangy bite to the sauce.
Eggs (in the method): Provide the rich, runny yolk and set whites that make up the dish.
Seville orange or lemon juice: Adds bright acidity that cuts through the richness of the eggs and ham.

The step that matters

Poaching the eggs until the whites are set but yolks remain runny. Eggs continue to cook from residual heat after leaving the water, so removing them too late sets the yolks. Whites set at a lower temperature than yolks, so timing decides whether the yolk stays liquid.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, onion, parsley, pepper):

Lemonfits better
Limefits better
Avocadofits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, parsley, pepper. 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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Eggs Poached with Sauce of Minced Ham