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Liver and Bacon

A dish of liver fried with bacon, seasoned with flour and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Cut thin slices of liver.

  2. Pour boiling water over the liver, then immediately pour the water off.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry an equal number of bacon slices, turning often until crisp.

  2. Remove the bacon from the fat and place it on a hot dish.

  3. Dredge the liver with flour and season with pepper.

  4. Fry the liver slowly in the hot fat, turning frequently.

  5. Serve the liver and bacon, alternating a slice of each.

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 + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Liver
Provides the main meaty body and rich flavour of the dish.
Bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat that crisps and flavours the liver as it cooks.
Flour
Dries the liver surface and helps it brown in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Fry the liver slowly in the hot fat. Liver is lean and dense, and high heat toughens it quickly. Slow cooking over moderate heat keeps it tender while the flour coating browns.

“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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