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 ↓
Breakfast
Ingredients
Directions
Cook eggs to your preference.
Fry bacon until crispy.
Cook fish and serve with melted butter.
Prepare porridge and top with cream.
Serve bread with butter.
Brew a cup of cafè au lait or cocoa.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,668 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + cocoatop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together103 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the cocoa
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, fish, butter, cream, bread):
- Peasfits about as well
- Almondfits about as well
- Walnutfits about as well
- Cocoathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, fish, butter, cream, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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