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Boiled Fowl and Egg Sauce

Boiled fowl served with a sauce of boiled eggs and white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,474 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Fowl and Egg Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fowl

  1. Truss the fowl for boiling and butter a piece of kitchen paper.

  2. Roll the fowl in the paper and tie it up securely.

  3. Bring enough water to a boil to cover the fowl, then add the seasoning and onion.

Boil and prepare the garnish

  1. Boil the fowl rapidly for a few minutes, then reduce heat and let it simmer gently for 1 hour.

  2. Hard boil the eggs, then cut them in half and wash the whites in cold water.

  3. Fill the egg whites with green peas or Brussels sprouts.

Serve

  1. Remove the fowl from the pot and pour the white sauce over it.

  2. Place the egg whites on the corner of the dish and rub the yolks through a wire sieve onto the fowl's breast.

  3. 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. Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + oniontop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,333 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Egg + saucetop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,895 recipes

Onion and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 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

Fowl
Provides the main body of the dish, cooked gently in simmering water until tender.
Eggs
Egg whites and rubbed yolks form the decorative garnish and add richness to the presentation.
White sauce
Coats the fowl with a smooth, creamy layer that adds moisture and flavor.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after the initial boil. A rapid boil toughens the meat's proteins, so after the brief vigorous boil the heat must be lowered to a gentle simmer to keep the fowl tender and moist.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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