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Pork and Liver

A dish of fried pickled pork or bacon and liver, seasoned with salted flour and served with pork gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and liver are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,606 recipes. Both carry 1-nonanal, which smells fatty, waxy. The science ↓

Pork and Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the slices of pickled pork or bacon until brown on each side.

  2. Pour boiling water over the liver slices and remove the thick skin from the edges.

  3. Roll the liver in salted flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the liver in the pork gravy after removing the pork.

  2. Cook the liver slowly and thoroughly on both sides.

  3. Serve each person with a slice of both pork and liver.

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. Pork + livertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  2. Pork + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Liver + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Pork and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,187 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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Its thick outer skin is removed, and cooking it through gives a tender, firm texture.
Salted flour
Coats the liver slices so they brown and form a light crust when fried.
Pickled pork or bacon
Its fat and salt flavour the dish and brown the pan for the gravy.
Pork gravy
Moisture and savoury flavour that the liver cooks in.

The step that matters

Cook the liver slowly and thoroughly on both sides. Liver turns grainy and tough when overcooked, yet undercooked liver is unsafe to eat. Gentle heat cooks it through while keeping it tender.

“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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