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Breakfast

A Bachelor Breakfast

A hearty breakfast of coffee, peaches, buttered rolls, beef steak, and tomato.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,448 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Bachelor Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Brew coffee in a percolator.

  2. Cut peaches and sprinkle with sugar.

  3. Set the table near the fire with butter and rolls.

Cook the steak

  1. Render sweet beef fat in a hot frying pan.

  2. Add the beef tenderloin steak and sprinkle with salt.

  3. When the steak is half done, add half-inch slices of beefsteak tomato.

  4. Enjoy the peaches and coffee while the steak finishes cooking.

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. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  2. Peach + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Coffee + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).

  4. Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tenderloin steak
Is the main protein, cooked in the rendered fat until browned and done.
Sweet beef fat
Provides the hot frying medium that browns the steak and adds richness.
Beefsteak tomato
Softens with gentle heat and adds juicy acidity alongside the steak.
Peaches
Sugar draws out their juices, giving a sweet, fresh contrast to the meal.

The step that matters

Adding the tomato at half-done. Tomato slices added too early can release juice and steam the steak instead of letting it brown, so timing them for when the steak is half cooked keeps the crust and the tomato's texture intact.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coffee, peach, sugar, butter, beef):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, peach, sugar, butter, beef. 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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