Why it works: Egg and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Bacon Egg-cap
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the bacon
Cut the bacon into thin slices and stew them slowly, turning them over occasionally.
Remove the bacon slices and add the stock to the grease in the pan.
Cook the eggs
Break the eggs over the stock and add the bacon slices back in.
Season with pepper and salt, then cook over low heat.
Use a red hot poker to scorch the top before serving.
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.
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Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together50,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bacon
- Renders fat that flavours the pan and adds savoury, salty taste.
- Eggs
- Set as they cook, forming the body of the dish.
- Stock
- Adds moisture and steams the eggs gently in the pan.
The step that matters
Cook the eggs over low heat. Eggs proteins set at moderate temperatures; high heat makes them tough and rubbery and can dry the stock out quickly. Gentle heat keeps the eggs tender.
“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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