Name: Fried Liver and Bacon with Spinach
Ingredients: 2 quarts spinach; 2 pounds calf's liver; ¼ pound bacon; flour (for coating); coarse sea salt; black pepper; lard (if needed)

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

Wash the spinach thoroughly.
Trim the roots and tough stalks of the spinach.
Soak the spinach in cold water.
Slice the liver into ½-inch thick pieces.
Pour boiling water over the liver.
Let the liver cool to remove the skin.
Dry the liver with a cloth.
Roll the liver in seasoned flour.
Slice the bacon very thin.

Cook the bacon and liver

Fry the bacon in a pan until it begins to crisp.
Remove the bacon to a hot dish.
Keep the bacon warm.
Add the liver to the pan if there are enough drippings.
If there are not enough drippings, add a little lard and heat.
Fry the liver until browned on both sides.
Season the liver with salt and pepper.
Place the liver on the hot dish with the bacon.

Cook the spinach and serve

Drain the spinach.
Boil the spinach in salted water for about 5 minutes until tender.
Drain the spinach again.
Transfer the spinach to cold salted water.
Drain the spinach again.
Add the spinach to the frying pan with the drippings.
Heat the spinach through.
Transfer the spinach to a hot platter.
Top the spinach with liver and bacon.
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.

Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,400 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,564 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,375 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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: Forms the main meaty centre; flour coating helps it brown in the fat.
Bacon: Renders fat for frying the liver and adds salty, smoky flavour.
Spinach: Provides the green vegetable base that soaks up the bacon and liver drippings.
Flour: Coats the liver so its surface browns and forms a light crust.
Lard: Adds frying fat when the bacon drippings are not enough.

The step that matters

Fry the liver until browned on both sides. Liver is delicate and overcooking makes it dry and grainy, while underheating leaves the flour coating pale and soft. Medium-high heat in hot fat browns the surface quickly while the inside stays tender.

Swap the spinach

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

Shallotfits about as well
Capsicumfits about as well
Carrotfits about as well
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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Fried Liver and Bacon with Spinach