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Bacon, Minced

A minced bacon mixture with onion, bread crumbs, cayenne pepper and gravy, served on buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bacon, Minced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mince the cold bacon and onion very finely.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the minced bacon, onion, bread crumbs, cayenne pepper, and enough gravy to moisten.

  3. Beat the mixture until well combined.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture on rounds of hot buttered toast.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold bacon
Provides the fat and savoury flavour that forms the body of the patty.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the mixture body so it holds together.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and moisture to the mixture.
Gravy
Moistens the mixture so the crumbs and bacon bind together.

The step that matters

Mincing the bacon and onion very finely. Fine pieces distribute fat and moisture evenly and bind with the crumbs, so the mixture holds together rather than crumbling or turning greasy in pockets.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper. 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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