Name: Fried Calfs Liver and Bacon
Ingredients: Calf's liver; Bacon; Lemon peel; Flour; Hot stock; White wine (optional); Pepper; Salt; Lemon juice

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fried Calfs Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the calf's liver and bacon thinly.
Fry the bacon until cooked but not burnt; keep it warm on a hot dish.
Fry the liver slices in the bacon fat until done.
On a hot dish, layer bacon and liver slices alternately until full.
In the frying pan, add lemon peel to the bacon fat, sprinkle in flour, and moisten with hot stock and white wine if desired.
Season with pepper, salt, and lemon juice; stir until smooth and brown.
Remove the lemon peel and pour the sauce over the liver and 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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,832 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
White wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,433 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,404 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).