Why it works: Flour and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Liver and Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the liver and bacon
Cut the liver into thin slices and scald it.
Wipe the liver dry.
Cut the bacon into thin slices, equal to the number of liver slices.
Fry the bacon in a frying pan until brown.
Remove the bacon and keep it warm.
Dust the liver with flour, salt, and pepper.
Fry the liver in the bacon fat until browned.
Make the sauce and serve
Arrange the liver on a heated dish, topping each slice with a piece of bacon.
Add the flour to the remaining fat in the pan.
Mix the flour into the fat, then add the boiling water.
Season the sauce with salt and pepper.
Pour the sauce around the liver.
Serve.
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.
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,375 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Liver + flourtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,418 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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, cooking to a tender, browned texture when fried quickly.
- Bacon
- Its fat browns the liver and adds savory, smoky flavour to the dish.
- Flour
- Dusts the liver and thickens the pan fat with boiling water into a light sauce.
The step that matters
Frying the liver until browned. Liver is delicate and overcooking it makes it dry and grainy. Frying quickly over fairly high heat in the bacon fat browns the outside while keeping the inside tender.
“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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