Skip to main content

Poached Eggs with Cream

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Plunge the eggs into warm water without breaking them and boil for 5 minutes, keeping the pan covered.

  2. Drain the eggs and plunge them into cold water to cool completely, then gently remove the shells.

  3. Warm the eggs in warm water for a few moments, then drain them.

  4. Prepare a reduced béchamel sauce and finish it with a few tablespoons of tomato sauce and a piece of butter.

  5. Handle the eggs gently to keep the yolks soft.

  6. Toast the bread slices and keep them hot.

  7. In a saucepan, combine the cheese, 1 egg, butter, salt, cayenne, and mustard. Stir over boiling water until creamy.

  8. Spread the cheese mixture on each slice of toast, top with a poached egg, and add a bit of butter, mustard, and salt on each egg. 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Egg + breadtop 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

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, milk, pepper, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

You might also like

Rice GruelRice Gruel28 recipesPeptoned Milk GruelPeptoned Milk Gruel9 recipes