Name: Calf's Liver and Bacon
Ingredients: 1 pound calf's liver, sliced ¼ inch thick; 1 pound bacon, sliced; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; flour, for dredging; 2 ounces butter; 1 tablespoon flour; 1 cup water

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Calf's Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

Pour hot water over the liver and let it sit for a few minutes to remove blood.
Dry the liver with a cloth.
Season the liver with pepper and salt.
Dredge the liver in flour.

Cook the bacon and liver

Fry the bacon in a pan until crisp.
Remove the bacon and keep warm.
Fry the liver in the bacon fat until browned.
Serve each slice of liver topped with a slice of bacon.

Make the gravy

Pour off most fat from the pan.
Add butter and flour, mix well.
Add water, salt, and pepper.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Serve the gravy in a gravy boat.

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.

Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,065 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,375 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver: Is the main meat, browned in bacon fat to develop a savory crust over a tender interior.
Bacon: Renders fat for frying the liver and adds salty, smoky flavor.
Flour: Dredging coats the liver so it browns, and flour thickens the gravy.
Butter: Adds richness and fat that combines with flour to form the gravy base.

The step that matters

Fry the liver in the bacon fat until browned. Liver is lean and cooks quickly; overcooking makes it dry and grainy. Browning over steady heat creates flavor 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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Calf's Liver and Bacon