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Breakfast

Breakfast

A simple breakfast of crispy bacon, toasted bread, sautéed spinach, served with coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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

Prepare

  1. Cook the bacon until crispy.

  2. Toast the bread.

  3. Sauté the spinach in butter until wilted.

Serve

  1. Serve with 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + spinachtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Spinach + coffeetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together44 recipes

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

  4. Bread + coffeetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together267 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + coffeetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Renders fat and adds salty, savoury flavour as it crisps.
Bread
Provides a toasted, crisp base that contrasts with the softer toppings.
Spinach
Wilts down quickly in butter, adding leafy bulk and a mild, earthy flavour.
Butter
Carries the heat into the spinach and adds richness and a nutty aroma.

The step that matters

Sauté the spinach in butter until wilted. Spinach holds a lot of water and shrinks sharply. Cooking over moderate heat only until it wilts keeps it tender and prevents it from turning soggy or bitter.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, 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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