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Fried Liver and Bacon

A dish of sliced liver fried in bacon fat, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Liver and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,375 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fried Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bacon into thin slices and keep it cold until ready to cook.

  2. Slice the liver into pieces about ⅓ inch thick.

  3. If using calf or sheep's liver, wash it in cold water and let it drain.

  4. If using beef liver, wash it, then cover it with boiling water and let it stand for 5 minutes.

  5. Drain it.

Cook

  1. Place the bacon in a hot frying pan and cook until crisp.

  2. Remove the bacon.

  3. Move the pan to a cooler part of the stove.

  4. Add the liver to the hot fat and cook for 8 minutes, turning often.

  5. Season the liver with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Arrange it on a warm platter.

  2. Garnish with the 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. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Provides the main body and rich flavor of the dish, cooked to a tender texture.
Bacon
Renders fat into the pan for frying the liver and adds crisp, salty flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the liver in a cooler part of the pan after removing the bacon. Liver cooks quickly and turns tough and grainy when overcooked, so moderate heat and the timed cook of about 8 minutes help keep it tender.

“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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