Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Poached Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Poach
Break the eggs into a saucer, one at a time.
Gently slip the eggs into salted water that is just about to boil.
Ensure there is plenty of water and do not let it boil around the eggs.
Once the egg white covers the yolk and is firm enough, carefully remove it with a slotted spoon.
Serve
Serve the poached eggs on toast or a hot dish seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper.
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 + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together50,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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
- Provide the main body of the dish; the white sets around the yolk when poached in hot water.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel to the finished dish.
The step that matters
Keep the water just below boiling. Vigorous boiling tears the delicate egg white apart, while water just under a simmer lets the white coagulate gently around the yolk and keep its shape.
“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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