Name: Calf's Liver and Bacon
Ingredients: 1 calf's liver, sliced ¼ inch thick; 1 pound bacon (or as needed); pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; flour, for dredging; 2 ounces butter; 1 tablespoon flour, for gravy; 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 slices and let them sit for a few minutes to remove blood, then dry with a cloth.

Cook and serve

Cut the same number of thin bacon slices as liver slices and fry the bacon until crisp; keep it warm.
In the same pan, season the liver with pepper and salt, dredge in flour, and fry until nicely browned in the bacon fat.
Serve each liver slice topped with a slice of bacon.
For gravy, pour off most fat from the pan, add butter and flour, mix well, then add water, salt, and pepper; bring to a boil and serve 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 protein, cooked quickly so it browns outside while staying tender inside.
Bacon: Adds salty, smoky fat that is used to fry the liver and crisp topping.
Flour: Dredging coat helps the liver brown and thickens the pan fat into gravy.
Butter: Adds richness and flavour to the gravy base.

The step that matters

Frying the dredged liver. Liver turns tough and grainy if overcooked, so it should be browned over steady heat and removed while still slightly pink inside. The flour coating browns through the Maillard reaction, giving colour and flavour without extra cooking time.

“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