Name: Ham or Bacon Toast
Ingredients: Slices of bread (about the size of two fingers); Good ham or streaky bacon (cut into small pieces); 1 egg; Shredded parsley; Green onions or shallots (finely chopped); Pepper; Clear acidulous sauce (to serve)

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Ham or Bacon Toast

Ingredients

Slices of bread (about the size of two fingers)
Good ham or streaky bacon (cut into small pieces)
1 egg
Shredded parsley
Green onions or shallots (finely chopped)
Pepper
Clear acidulous sauce (to serve)

Directions

Prepare

Cut the bread into slices.

Cook

Dip the ham or bacon pieces in a mixture of beaten egg, parsley, green onions, and pepper.
Fry the bread with the ham or bacon over low heat.

Serve

Serve with a clear acidic sauce of your choice.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 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: Bind the dipping mixture and coat the ham or bacon so it sticks to the bread.
Ham or bacon: Adds savory, salty flavor and fat that flavors the bread as it fries.
Bread: Provides the base that soaks up fat and browns as it fries.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, ham, egg, parsley, pepper, sauce):

Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, ham, egg, parsley, pepper, sauce. 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.