Name: Calf's Liver and Bacon
Ingredients: 2 to 3 pounds calf's liver; bacon (slices equal to liver slices); pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; 1 small piece of butter; 2 teaspoons flour; 2 tablespoons lemon juice; ½ cup water

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 ↓

Calf's Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver and bacon

Cut the liver into thin slices.
Fry the bacon until crispy and place it on a hot dish.

Cook and assemble

In the bacon fat, fry the liver after seasoning with pepper, salt, and a little flour.
Turn the liver occasionally to prevent burning.
Arrange the liver around the dish with a piece of bacon between each slice.
Pour off excess bacon fat, add butter, a little flour, lemon juice, and water; bring to a boil.
Pour the sauce in the center of the dish.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,404 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Calf's liver: Main protein; its thin slices cook quickly and stay tender when fried briefly.
Bacon: Adds salty, smoky fat for frying the liver and crisp garnish pieces.
Flour: Light coating on the liver that helps it brown and thickens the pan sauce.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich liver and bacon flavor in the sauce.

The step that matters

Turning the liver occasionally. Thin liver slices cook fast and dry out or burn on the hot pan, turning them regularly keeps them tender and evenly browned.

“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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Calf's Liver and Bacon