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Fried Liver and Bacon

A dish of sliced sheep liver fried in bacon drippings, topped with bacon and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fried Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the lungs from the liver if desired.

  2. Wash the liver in cold water.

  3. Steep the liver in boiling water for 1 minute.

  4. Cut the liver into thin slices lengthwise.

  5. Cut the bacon into thin slices.

Fry

  1. Fry the bacon slices until cooked, then remove from the pan.

  2. Fry the liver slices in the bacon drippings. Add ghee if necessary.

  3. Season the liver slices with pepper and salt.

  4. Transfer the browned liver to a warm dish.

  5. Fry the onions until brown.

Assemble and serve

  1. Top the liver with the fried bacon.

  2. Place the onions over the liver and bacon.

  3. Add a little gravy made with hot water from the pan.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

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

  4. Onion + gheetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,310 recipes
  5. Pepper + gheetop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together690 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's liver
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked quickly to stay tender and browned on the outside.
Bacon
Its drippings fry the liver and add savory, salty fat flavor.
Onions
Fried until brown, they add sweetness and deep browned flavor.
Ghee
Adds fat for frying the liver and supports browning in the pan.

The step that matters

Frying the liver slices. Liver is lean and dense, so brief, high-heat frying browns the surface while keeping the inside tender. Overcooking makes it dry, firm and grainy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pepper, ghee):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, ghee. 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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