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Broiled Calf's Liver, with Bacon

A quick broiled dish of thinly sliced calf's liver and bacon, seasoned with butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Broiled Calf's Liver, with Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and slice the calf's liver into thin pieces.

Cook

  1. Broil the liver over a brisk fire alongside thin slices of breakfast bacon.

  2. Season with butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

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. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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's liver
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks quickly into tender slices when thinly cut.
Breakfast bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat that flavours the liver as it broils alongside it.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky finish to the hot liver once seasoned.

The step that matters

Broil the liver over a brisk fire. Liver is thin and lean, so a brisk, hot fire browns the outside quickly while keeping the inside tender. Overcooking makes it dry and firm.

“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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