Name: A Little Breakfast Dish
Ingredients: 2 long slices of cold meat; 3 slices of bread, thickly buttered; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; 2 teaspoons chopped parsley (or 2 teaspoons chopped ham if using veal); butter for basting

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

A Little Breakfast Dish

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

2 long slices of cold meat
3 slices of bread, thickly buttered
pepper to taste
coarse sea salt to taste
2 teaspoons chopped parsley (or 2 teaspoons chopped ham if using veal)
butter for basting

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Season the meat with pepper, salt, and chopped parsley or ham.
Layer one slice of bread between two slices of meat, with the remaining two slices of bread on the outside.
Secure the layers with wooden skewers.

Bake and serve

Place in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) and baste with butter until the bread is crisp and brown.
Serve hot.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,588 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat: Forms the filling layers that are seasoned and sandwiched between the bread.
Bread: Forms the outer layers, and crisps and browns in the oven when basted with butter.
Butter: Basting fat that helps the bread crisp and brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Basting the bread with butter in the hot oven. Butter carries heat to the bread surface and promotes browning, so the bread needs enough fat to turn crisp and golden rather than dry or pale.

Swap the parsley

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

Parsleythe original
Thymefits about as well
Sagefits about as well
Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, pepper, butter. 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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Meat Croquettes52 recipes

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A Little Breakfast Dish