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Baked Liver

A calf's liver baked with bacon, lemon, and water, then served with fried bacon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,404 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Liver

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and bake

  1. Wash and scald the calf's liver, then roll it in flour.

  2. Place the liver in the bottom of a baking pan and layer strips of bacon on top.

  3. Add a little water to the pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour, basting frequently.

  4. Once done, transfer the liver to a hot serving dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Squeeze the juice of a lemon into the baking pan, then add a little water.

  2. Pour the mixture over the liver.

  3. Garnish with thin slices of fried bacon around the edge.

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. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Liver + lemontop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together768 recipes

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

  3. Liver + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently until tender in the oven.
Bacon
Melts fat into the pan and adds savory flavor that seasons the liver as it bakes.
Flour
Dry coating on the liver that helps it brown lightly during baking.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavor of the liver and pan juices.

The step that matters

Basting the liver during the one-hour bake. Frequent basting keeps the surface moist in dry oven heat, so the liver stays tender rather than drying out and toughening.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Limefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, flour. 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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