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Breakfast

Bacon with Eggs and Tomatoes

A simple breakfast dish of bacon, eggs, and tomatoes cooked together.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bacon with Eggs and Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Roughly cut up the tomatoes and place them in a bowl.

  2. Crack the eggs into the bowl and season with salt and pepper.

Cook

  1. Cook the bacon in a pan.

  2. Add the tomato and egg mixture to the pan.

  3. Stir continuously in the bacon fat until the mixture thickens.

  4. Serve with slices of fried bacon.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + hamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together348 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Pepper + hamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and thicken as they cook, binding the tomatoes into a soft, scrambled-style mixture.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity, giving the eggs a fresh, juicy body.
Bacon
Adds fat for cooking and a savoury, smoky flavour, with browned bits for aroma.

The step that matters

Stir continuously in the bacon fat until the mixture thickens. Egg proteins set from heat, so if the mixture sits still it can overcook on the bottom and turn rubbery or curdled while the top stays runny. Constant stirring over moderate heat keeps the curds small and creamy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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