Name: Bacon and Eggs
Ingredients: slices of ham or breakfast bacon; butter; eggs; coarse sea salt; black pepper; parsley sprigs

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Bacon and Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Warm a clean frying pan, but do not heat it too much.
Fry the bacon slices, turning them as they brown.
Once cooked, transfer the bacon to a hot dish to keep warm.
Strain the grease from the pan into a cup.
Wipe the pan clean, return the strained fat, and heat it.
If there isn't enough fat, add 1 tablespoon of butter.
Break each egg into a cup, then carefully add them to the hot fat.
Cook the eggs for about three minutes, using a spatula to prevent sticking.
Remove the eggs as they cook, trimming any ragged edges.
Arrange the bacon around the eggs on a hot platter, season with salt and pepper, and garnish with parsley.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,526 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).