Name: Calf's Liver and Bacon
Ingredients: Calf's liver; Bacon; Gravy; Flour; Butter; Lemon juice; Salt; Pepper

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 ↓

Calf's Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the calf's liver and bacon into slices.

Cook and serve

Fry the liver first, then the bacon.
Place the liver in a dish and top with the bacon.
Make gravy in the pan by thickening with flour and butter, then add a little lemon juice.
Serve the dish with the gravy poured over it.

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).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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: Forms the main body of the dish, cooked until tender and firm when sliced properly.
Bacon: Adds salty, savoury fat that flavours the liver and browns in the pan.
Flour: Thickens the pan juices into a smooth gravy by absorbing liquid as it cooks.
Butter: Adds richness and fat to the gravy and helps the flour cook into a smooth roux.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich liver and gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the liver. Calf's liver turns dry and grainy when overcooked, so it should be cooked briefly over moderate heat and kept slightly pink inside for a tender texture.

“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