Name: Eggs
Ingredients: 4 eggs; 4 slices of bacon; 1 cup heavy cream; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste

Why it works: Cream and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the bacon

Cook the bacon in a skillet until crispy.
Remove the bacon and set aside.

Cook the eggs

Crack the eggs into the same skillet and cook to desired doneness.

Make the cream sauce

Heat the heavy cream in a saucepan over low heat until warm.
Season the cream with salt and pepper.

Serve

Serve the eggs topped with bacon and drizzled with cream sauce.

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.

Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together21,449 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Eggs: Set into soft or firm structure as they cook, forming the main body of the dish.
Bacon: Adds salty, savoury flavour and crisp texture, and its rendered fat seasons the skillet.
Heavy cream: Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.

“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.