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Eggs with Bacon

A toast topped with bacon, half an egg, brown sauce, and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,019 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Eggs with Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs and bacon

  1. Boil the eggs hard.

  2. Remove the shells.

  3. Cut them in half lengthwise.

  4. Fry the bacon until crispy.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the toast on a heated dish.

  2. Place a slice of bacon on each piece.

  3. Pour a little brown sauce over the bacon.

  4. Lay half an egg on top, white side up.

  5. Garnish with fresh lettuce leaves.

  6. Serve.

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. Sauce + lettucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Egg + saucetop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,895 recipes

Egg and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,895 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
Provide the main filling, with the set white showing on top.
Bacon
Adds salty, savoury flavour and crisp texture when fried.
Brown toast
Gives a crisp, sturdy base that holds the other toppings.
Brown sauce
Adds savoury, tangy flavour and moisture over the bacon.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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.

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