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Fried Liver and Bacon with Spinach

A dish of sautéed spinach served with fried calf liver and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Fried Liver and Bacon with Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the spinach thoroughly, trim the roots and tough stalks, and soak in cold water.

  2. Slice the calf's liver into ½‑inch thick pieces, pour boiling water over it, and let it cool to remove the skin.

  3. Dry the liver with a cloth and roll it in seasoned flour.

  4. Slice the bacon very thin and fry it in a pan until it begins to crisp.

  5. While the bacon cooks, drain the spinach and boil it in salted water for about 5 minutes until tender.

  6. Drain the spinach and place it in cold salted water.

  7. Once the bacon is crisp, remove it from the pan and keep it warm.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the liver in the bacon drippings until browned on both sides, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  2. Place the cooked liver on a warm dish with the bacon.

  3. Drain the spinach again, stir it in the frying pan with the drippings until hot, then serve it on a platter.

  4. Top the spinach with the liver and bacon, and serve immediately.

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. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Spinach + livertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together46 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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; boiling water and cooling loosen the skin, and flour coating helps it brown.
Bacon
Provides fat and drippings that brown the liver and add smoky, salty flavour.
Spinach
Cooked to tenderness, it forms the bed and absorbs flavour from the bacon drippings.
Flour
Seasoned coating that helps the liver brown in the drippings.

The step that matters

Frying the liver. Liver is delicate and overcooking it makes it dry and grainy. Brief, high heat in the drippings browns the outside while keeping the inside tender.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

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