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Liver and Bacon

A dish of sliced calf liver fried with bacon and simmered in a broth of boiling water, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Pour boiling water over the liver slices and let them stand for 5 minutes.

  2. Wipe dry.

  3. Coat the liver slices thickly with flour.

Fry and simmer

  1. In a frying pan, cook the bacon over medium heat for 3 minutes.

  2. Add lard if the bacon does not yield enough fat.

  3. Once the pan is very hot, add the liver slices and fry for a few minutes on one side.

  4. Turn and fry the other side until well browned.

  5. Pour in enough boiling water to half-cover the liver.

  6. Season with salt and pepper.

  7. Cover tightly and let simmer gently for 20 to 30 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Remove the liver to a hot dish with the bacon.

  2. Boil the remaining liquid in the frying pan, stirring.

  3. If too much liquid has evaporated, add a few spoonfuls of boiling water, boil, stir, and pour over the liver.

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. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Liver + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, browning on the outside while staying tender inside.
Bacon
Renders fat into the pan for frying and adds savory, salty flavor.
Flour
Coats the liver so it browns well and helps thicken the pan liquid.

The step that matters

Frying the liver until well browned. The pan must be very hot before the liver goes in, so the surface sears and browns instead of steaming. Overcooking after browning, or simmering too long, toughens the liver and makes it dry and grainy.

“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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