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Bacon Toast

A toasted bread sandwich with bacon, egg, parsley, green onions, shallots, pepper, and a clear sauce with vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Bacon Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bread into slices about 2-3 inches long.

  2. Cut the bacon into small pieces.

Make the coating

  1. Beat the raw egg in a bowl and mix in the parsley, green onions, shallots, and pepper.

  2. Dip the bread and bacon pieces into the egg mixture.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the dipped bread and bacon over low heat until golden brown.

  2. Serve with clear sauce mixed with vinegar.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raw egg
Binds the herbs and coats the bread so the pieces hold together while frying.
Bread
Forms the base of each piece and soaks up the egg mixture as it fries.
Streaked bacon
Adds salty, fatty flavor and renders fat that helps the coating brown.
Chopped shallots
Adds mild onion flavor that deepens during frying.

The step that matters

Fry over low heat until golden brown. Low heat lets the egg coating set and the bacon cook through before the bread surface over-browns or burns. Egg proteins set as they warm, so a steady gentle heat gives an even golden crust.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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