Name: Calf’s Liver Fried
Ingredients: calf's liver, sliced; good beef dripping or butter; rashers of toasted bacon; parsley; plain melted butter

Why it works: Parsley and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Calf’s Liver Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Heat the beef dripping or butter in a pan until boiling.
Add the sliced liver when the fat stops hissing.
Fry until cooked through.
Prepare the bacon by soaking it in boiling water to remove salt, then toast it.
Serve the liver with the bacon arranged around it and sprinkle with crisped parsley.
Pour a little melted butter over the liver and serve the rest in a sauceboat.

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.

Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,866 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Liver + beeftop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together431 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Liver + parsleytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).