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Breakfast

Breakfast

A simple breakfast plate with a boiled egg, whitefish or bacon, a light savory omelet, toast with butter, and weak tea or coffee with milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the egg lightly.

  2. Prepare a small piece of whitefish or bacon.

  3. Make a light savory omelet.

Serve

  1. Serve with toast or bread and butter.

  2. Brew a cup of weak tea or coffee with milk.

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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  2. Bread + teatop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together383 recipes

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

  3. Whitefish + breadtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + teatop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together821 recipes

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

  5. Egg + whitefishtop 38% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together63 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Lightly boiled, it gives a soft, runny yolk and a tender white.
Whitefish or bacon
Adds salty, savory flavor and richness to the plate.
Omelet eggs
Set by gentle heat to form a light, tender savory layer.
Bread and butter
Butter adds fat and richness, and toast gives a crisp contrast.

The step that matters

Boil the egg lightly. Egg proteins set as the temperature rises, so a short boil leaves the yolk soft and the white just firm. Overcooking turns the yolk chalky and dry.

“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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