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Breakfast

A Bachelor Breakfast

A hearty breakfast featuring coffee, peaches, buttered rolls, steak, and tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 a generous amount of freshly ground coffee in a percolator.

  2. Cut the peaches and sprinkle them with sugar; set aside for cream.

  3. Prepare the kitchen table with butter and rolls, placing it near the fire.

Cook the steak

  1. In a hot frying pan, render 3-4 lumps of beef fat until melted.

  2. Add the beef tenderloin steak to the pan and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

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

  4. Let the steak and tomatoes cook while enjoying the peaches and pouring coffee.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tenderloin steak
Forms the main protein, providing the substantial meat course of the meal.
Beef fat
Melted in the pan to provide cooking fat that browns the steak and adds richness.
Beefsteak tomato
Softens in the pan and adds moisture and acidity alongside the seared steak.
Peaches
Sugared to draw out juices, providing sweetness and fruitiness as a side.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coffee, peach, sugar, cream, 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, cream, 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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