Name: To Cook Liver
Ingredients: thin slices of breakfast bacon; thin slices of liver; flour; lemon slices

Why it works: Flour and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,404 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Cook Liver

Ingredients

thin slices of breakfast bacon
thin slices of liver
flour
lemon slices

Directions

Fry the bacon in a sauté pan until done and place on a hot dish.
Briefly dip the liver in boiling water, then sprinkle with flour.
Fry the liver in the same fat until well done on both sides.
Serve the liver and bacon on the same dish, garnished with lemon slices.

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 + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,404 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Liver + lemontop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together768 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Liver + flourtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,418 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).