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Breakfast

Breakfast

A simple breakfast of bacon, egg, string beans, butter, cream, and coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

Cook

  1. Cook the bacon in a skillet until crispy.

  2. Fry the egg in the bacon fat to your desired doneness.

  3. Heat the string beans in a small pot.

Serve

  1. Serve the bacon, egg, and string beans with butter and cream on the side.

  2. Brew a cup of coffee.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Beans + coffeetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together289 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Cream + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Sets when fried, giving the plate its main protein and soft or firm texture.
Bacon
Renders fat for frying the egg and adds salty, browned flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the plate as a finishing fat.

The step that matters

Fry the egg in the bacon fat to your desired doneness. Heat that is too high sets the white before the yolk is ready or browns the edges too fast. Moderate heat and a lid or basting help the white set evenly while the yolk stays at the chosen doneness.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, cream, coffee. 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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