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An Excellent Breakfast Dish

A baked breakfast dish of minced meat patties topped with egg and butter, dusted with crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

An Excellent Breakfast Dish

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Combine minced meat, bread crumbs, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

  2. Mix thoroughly and divide into 5 portions.

Assemble

  1. Spread each portion in small saucers.

  2. Place a piece of butter on each portion.

  3. Crack an egg on top of each.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until they begin to cook.

  2. Dust lightly with rolled crackers and serve hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Minced meat
Forms the body of the patties and provides savoury flavour and richness.
Bread crumbs
Absorb meat juices and help hold the patties together with a tender texture.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the topping and add structure and moisture.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches flavour and keeps the meat moist as it cooks.

The step that matters

Bake until they begin to cook. Baking only until the egg just begins to set keeps the topping soft and the meat tender. Overbaking dries the meat and turns the egg rubbery.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, pepper, butter, egg. 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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