Name: Calf's Liver and Bacon
Ingredients: 1 pound bacon; 1 calf's liver, sliced ¼ inch thick; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; flour, for dredging; 2 ounces butter; 1 tablespoon flour; 1 cup water

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Calf's Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

Pour hot water over the liver.
Let the liver sit for a few minutes to remove blood.
Dry the liver with a cloth.
Cut the bacon into thin slices equal to the number of liver slices.
Fry the bacon until crisp.
Season the liver with pepper and salt.
Dredge the seasoned liver in flour.

Cook and serve

Fry the liver in the bacon fat until browned.
Serve each slice of liver topped with a slice of bacon.
Pour off most fat from the pan.
Add butter and flour to the pan and mix well.
Add water, salt, and pepper to the pan.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Serve the gravy in a gravy boat.

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.

Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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).

Flour and butter 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: Is the main meat, cooked quickly so it browns outside and stays tender inside.
Bacon: Adds salty, savoury flavour and its rendered fat is used to fry the liver.
Flour: Coats the liver to help it brown, and thickens the pan gravy with butter.
Butter: Adds richness and, with flour, forms the base that thickens the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the liver in the bacon fat until browned. Liver is delicate and overcooks quickly, becoming dry and grainy. Dredging in flour helps create a browned crust, so cook briefly over steady heat and avoid crowding the pan.

“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