Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓
Beef Liver
Ingredients
Directions
Soak the fresh beef liver in cold water for a few minutes.
Remove the liver and wipe it dry.
Fry slices of salt pork in a frying pan.
Cut the liver into ¾ inch thick slices and lay them in the frying pan.
Fry the liver slowly until browned.
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.
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Beef + porktop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,690 recipes
Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
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Liver + porktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,606 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).
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Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,847 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
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