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Fried Eggs with Tomato Sauce

Fried eggs served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato 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 ↓

Fried Eggs with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the eggs

  1. Heat the salad oil in a small frying pan until it is smoking hot.

  2. Tilt the frying pan to gather the oil in one place.

  3. Gently slide a broken egg, seasoned with salt and pepper, into the hot oil.

  4. Wrap the egg white over the yolk to form a roll, being careful not to break the yolk.

  5. Once cooked, place the egg on a clean cloth to drain.

  6. Repeat until you have the desired number of eggs.

Serve

  1. Serve the eggs on a dish and pour thick tomato sauce around them.

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.

  1. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + saucetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + tomatotop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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
Set and form the main body of the dish, with the white wrapping the yolk.
Salad oil
Conducts heat to cook the eggs quickly and gives the whites a crisp, fried edge.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture and acidity alongside the rich eggs.

The step that matters

Wrapping the egg white over the yolk. The white must set enough to hold its shape while the yolk stays soft. Folding too early or too late can break the yolk and spill its runny contents into the oil.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, sauce. 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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