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 ↓
Pried Liver and Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the bacon into thin slices.
Keep the sliced bacon cold until ready to cook.
Wash the liver in cold water and drain it.
Cook and serve
In a hot frying pan, cook the bacon until crisp, then remove it from the pan.
In the same pan, cook the liver in the bacon fat for eight minutes, turning often.
Season the liver with salt and pepper.
Arrange the liver on a warm platter and garnish it with the bacon.
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.
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Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Bacon
- Renders fat for cooking the liver and adds crisp, savory garnish.
- Liver
- Provides the main body of the dish, browning on the outside while staying tender inside.
The step that matters
Cooking the liver for eight minutes. Liver is lean and delicate, so overcooking makes it dry and grainy. Turning it often in hot bacon fat browns the surface evenly while the inside stays 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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