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Fried Eggs and Bacon

A dish of fried eggs served over bacon or ham, seasoned with mustard and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Eggs and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bacon

  1. Broil the slices of ham or bacon and drain them into a deep plate.

Fry the eggs

  1. Heat boiling lard in a stewpan.

  2. Break the eggs into the lard and fry until set, about two minutes.

  3. Remove the eggs with a skimmer and drain them.

Serve

  1. Serve hot over the bacon or ham.

  2. Add a little mustard and vinegar.

  3. Do not add salt.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  5. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a firm white and a soft yolk when fried in hot lard.
Bacon
Contributes salty, savoury fat that flavours the dish.
Boiling lard
Conducts heat quickly to cook and set the eggs, adding richness.

The step that matters

Frying the eggs until set. Lard must be hot enough that the egg white sets quickly. If the fat is too cool, the eggs absorb grease and turn rubbery before the white firms.

“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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