Skip to main content
Main

Bacon Toast

A toasted bread and bacon dish served with clear sauce and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Bacon Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bread into thin slices, about 2-3 inches long.

  2. Cut the streaked bacon into small pieces.

Make and cook

  1. In a bowl, beat the raw egg and mix in the shredded parsley, chopped green onions, chopped shallots, and pepper.

  2. Dip the bread and bacon pieces into the egg mixture.

  3. Fry the dipped bread and bacon over low heat until golden.

Serve

  1. Serve with a clear sauce and a little vinegar.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raw egg
Binds the parsley, onion, and shallot mixture and coats the bread so it sets when fried.
Bread
Forms the base that soaks up the egg mixture and fries to a crisp golden surface.
Streaked bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that renders into the frying and browns the pieces.

The step that matters

Fry the dipped bread and bacon over low heat until golden. Low heat lets the egg coating set and the bacon fat render gradually, so the egg does not scorch before the bread and bacon are cooked through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, parsley, shallot, pepper, sauce, vinegar):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, parsley, shallot, pepper, sauce, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes