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Bacon and Eggs

A simple dish of fried bacon, eggs, toast, and baked potatoes, finished with vinegar and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Bacon and Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the bacon and eggs

  1. Cut the bacon into very thin rashers and fry in a very hot pan until yellow and curled.

  2. If there isn't enough fat, add some rendered fat from salt pork.

  3. Fry the eggs on one side until soft.

  4. Carefully lift the eggs to a hot dish with the bacon and a piece of toast for each egg.

Make the vinegar sauce

  1. Pour the vinegar into the pan.

  2. Boil the vinegar.

  3. Season with pepper.

  4. Pour the vinegar over the eggs and toast.

Serve

  1. Serve with baked potatoes.

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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  5. Pork + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and firm up when fried, forming the main body of the dish.
Salt bacon
Fat renders out during frying and the crisped rashers add savoury flavour and texture.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that cuts the richness of the fat and eggs.

The step that matters

Boil the vinegar. Vinegar must boil briefly in the hot pan so its sharp volatile acidity mellows and it coats the eggs evenly rather than tasting raw and harsh.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, egg, vinegar, pepper. 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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