Skip to main content
Main

Calf's Liver and Bacon

A dish of thinly sliced calf liver fried with bacon, seasoned with pepper and salt, served with a lemon‑juice sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Calf's Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and fry

  1. Cut the calf liver into thin slices.

  2. Cut an equal number of bacon slices.

  3. Fry the bacon in a pan until cooked, then place it on a hot dish.

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

  5. Turn the liver occasionally to prevent burning.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. When done, arrange the liver slices on the dish with a bacon slice between each.

  2. Pour off the bacon fat.

  3. Add a small piece of butter, dredge in a little flour, add lemon juice and water, and bring to a boil.

  4. Pour the sauce into the center of the dish.

  5. Optionally garnish with lemon slices or forcemeat balls.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

203Calories
5 gProtein
15 gFat
13 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 10 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Bacon1 slice cooked (8g)43
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Thyme1 tsp dried (1.4g)4
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Saucenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf liver (in the method)
Main protein that turns tender and juicy when cooked briefly.
Bacon
Adds salty, savoury fat that flavours and crisps the liver.
Béchamel sauce
Creamy base that adds richness and moisture to the dish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich liver and sauce.
Flour (in the method)
Light coating that helps the liver brown and thickens the sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the liver. Liver toughens and dries out when overcooked, so brief frying over steady heat keeps it tender. Turning the slices occasionally cooks them evenly and stops the edges from scorching.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, parsley, sauce, butter, pepper, vinegar, thyme):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, parsley, sauce, butter, pepper, vinegar, thyme. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes