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Poached Eggs, with Anchovy Toast

Poached eggs served on buttered bread topped with anchovy paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Poached Eggs, with Anchovy Toast

6 slices of toast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the toast

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Butter each slice of bread and spread a light layer of anchovy paste on top.

  3. Place the toast on a hot dish in the oven to warm.

Poach and serve

  1. Poach the eggs until desired doneness.

  2. Place one poached egg on each piece of toast, season with pepper, and serve immediately.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  3. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Provides a crisp, sturdy base that holds the egg and anchovy topping.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the bread brown lightly when warmed.
Anchovy paste
Adds a salty, savoury flavour that cuts through the richness of the egg.
Eggs
Provide a soft, creamy yolk that moistens the toast as it is broken.

The step that matters

Poach the eggs until desired doneness. Egg whites set at lower temperatures than yolks, so timing decides whether the yolk stays runny or firms up. Poaching too long makes the yolk chalky, while too short leaves the white unset.

“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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