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Pig's Liver and Bacon

A fried dish of pig liver and bacon with onions, seasoned and coated in flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pig's Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Slice the liver and soak it in cold water for 30 minutes to draw out the blood.

  2. Wipe the liver dry, then season with salt, pepper, and coat with flour.

Cook the bacon and onion

  1. Fry the bacon slices until crispy, then remove them from the pan.

  2. In the same fat, cook the sliced onion until soft.

Fry the liver

  1. Strain the fat, return it to the pan, and heat until it hisses.

  2. Add the floured liver slices and fry until browned.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig's liver
Is the main protein, cooked until browned on the outside while staying tender inside.
Flour
Coats the liver slices so they brown in the hot fat and form a light crust.
Bacon
Renders fat for frying and adds savoury, smoky flavour to the liver and onion.
Onion
Softens in the bacon fat, adding sweetness that balances the rich liver.

The step that matters

Soaking the liver in cold water. Soaking draws out blood, which otherwise can taste strong and metallic and can make the liver look dark and unappealing once cooked. Drying the slices well before flouring helps them brown rather than steam in the pan.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe 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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