Name: Liver and Bacon
Ingredients: slices of bacon; liver; coarse sea salt; black pepper; butter

Why it works: Liver and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,065 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the bacon in a frying pan until crispy and keep it warm on a heated dish.
In the same frying pan, lay the liver and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Cook until rare.
Transfer the liver to a hot plate and slice it into thin strips, removing any stringy or gristly parts.
Return the liver to the frying pan, add a generous piece of butter, and stir with a fork until heated through.
Serve the liver in the center of a hot platter with the bacon arranged around 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.

Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,065 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,375 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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