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Liver and Bacon

A dish of sliced liver and bacon baked with onions, parsley, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Liver and Bacon

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut the liver into 1‑inch slices and place in a pan.

  2. In a skillet, brown the onions and parsley in the dripping.

  3. Sprinkle the liver with the onion and parsley mixture, then dredge with flour.

  4. Layer the sliced bacon on top of the liver.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400 °F (200 °C) for 10 minutes.

  2. Cover the dish with boiling water, season with salt and pepper, and return to the oven for 20 minutes.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Liver
Forms the main body of the dish, giving it a rich, meaty texture when cooked through.
Bacon
Adds fat and salty, smoky flavour as it renders over the liver during baking.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet when browned, adding depth to the dish.
Flour
Dusted on the liver, it helps form a light coating that thickens the juices slightly.

The step that matters

Covering the dish with boiling water before the second bake. Liver overcooks quickly and turns dry and grainy; the added hot water gently steams the slices so they stay moist during the final 20 minutes.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, parsley, 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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