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Liver and Bacon

A dish of liver and bacon cooked in bacon fat, served with a flour‑based gravy and optional lemon and onion juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the bacon and liver

  1. Cook the bacon in a skillet until nicely browned but not crisp, then place it on a platter.

  2. In the hot bacon drippings, add the floured and peppered liver slices.

  3. Cook the liver for about 10 minutes, basting continually with the bacon fat.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, mix 1 teaspoon of flour with 3 tablespoons of bacon fat and ½ cup of boiling milk to make a gravy.

  2. Cook the gravy until thickened, then pour it over the liver.

  3. Add lemon juice and onion juice to the gravy if desired.

  4. Serve the liver with dipped toast or pancakes.

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.

  1. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Is the main meat, cooked quickly so it stays tender and browned on the outside.
Bacon fat
Carries heat and flavor for frying the liver and forms the base of the gravy.
Flour
Coats the liver for browning and thickens the milk into a gravy.
Milk
Forms the body of the gravy, giving it a creamy, smooth texture when thickened.
Bacon
Contributes savory flavor and fat that seasons the liver and the pan.

The step that matters

Cook the liver for about 10 minutes, basting continually. Liver overcooks quickly and turns dry and grainy. Basting with hot fat keeps the surface moving toward browning while the interior stays tender.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, flour, pepper, milk, onion):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Avocadofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, flour, pepper, milk, onion. 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.

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