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Breakfast

Breakfast

A breakfast featuring mackerel, potatoes, toast, and flannel cakes served with syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the nutmeg melon by slicing it.

  2. Broil the mackerel until cooked through.

  3. Boil the whole potatoes until tender.

  4. Toast the bread and spread with butter.

Make the flannel cakes

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, milk, sugar, and baking powder to make a batter.

  2. Cook the batter on a griddle to make flannel cakes.

  3. Serve the flannel cakes with syrup.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Nutmeg + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they cook.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cakes rise and turn light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and tenderness to the batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.
Eggs (in the method)
Not listed in this record; omitted.

The step that matters

Cook the batter on a griddle. Batter cooked on a surface that is too hot browns outside before the centre sets, while too cool a surface makes the cakes flat and pale. Wait for bubbles to form and burst before flipping, so the structure has set.

Swap the melon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (nutmeg, potato, butter, flour, milk, sugar, syrup):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Melonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, potato, butter, flour, milk, sugar, syrup. 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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