Name: Broiled Calf's Liver with Bacon
Ingredients: 1 calf's liver, cut into thin slices; thin slices of breakfast bacon; butter; coarse sea salt; black pepper

Why it works: Liver and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,065 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Broiled Calf's Liver with Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Pour boiling water over the calf's liver slices.
Boil the liver with the bacon over a clean fire.
Season with butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

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.

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).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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, with its texture set by brief cooking.
Breakfast bacon: Adds fat and savory flavor as it cooks alongside the liver.
Butter: Adds richness and flavor to the finished liver.

“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.