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Calf's Liveb and Bacon

A dish of thinly sliced calf liver cooked with bacon, seasoned, and served with a lemon‑water sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

Calf's Liveb and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the liver into thin slices.

  2. Match the number of bacon slices to the liver slices.

Cook the bacon and liver

  1. Fry the bacon first and place it on a hot dish.

  2. Fry the liver in the bacon fat, seasoning with pepper and salt, and lightly dredging with flour.

  3. Turn the liver occasionally to prevent burning.

  4. When done, arrange the liver around the dish with a piece of bacon between each slice.

Make the sauce

  1. Pour off the bacon fat.

  2. Add a small piece of butter.

  3. Dredge the butter in a little flour.

  4. Add lemon juice and water.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  6. Pour the sauce in the center of the dish.

  7. Garnish with lemon slices or forcemeat balls if desired.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Liver
Its lean protein sets firm when fried, while a quick cook keeps it tender.
Bacon
Its fat fries the liver and adds salty, smoky flavour.
Flour
A light dusting helps the liver brown and thickens the pan sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich liver and fatty sauce.

The step that matters

Turn the liver occasionally. Liver is thin and lean, so it dries out and toughens quickly over high heat. Turning it regularly promotes even browning and keeps the inside tender instead of burnt on the outside.

“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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