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Breakfast

Appetizing for Breakfast

A pancake batter cooked over bacon, made with eggs, milk, flour, pepper, and bacon rashers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Appetizing for Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

  2. Add the milk, flour, and pepper; mix until smooth.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the bacon in a skillet until slightly brown on one side.

  2. Turn the bacon over and pour the batter over it.

  3. Cook until the batter is browned on both sides.

  4. Serve immediately on a hot dish.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 the batter into a firm, sliceable pancake as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the pancake body.
Milk
Loosens the batter and adds moisture to the pancake.
Bacon
Adds fat and salty flavour, and browns in the skillet.

The step that matters

Pouring the batter onto the bacon. The batter should go in once the bacon is only lightly browned on one side, so the bacon stays in place and the batter cooks evenly. Pouring too early or too late can leave the pancake uneven or the bacon overcooked.

“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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