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Baked Calf's Liver with Bacon

A baked dish of thinly sliced calf's liver layered with bacon and bread crumbs, topped with a butter, onion, parsley, and boiling water mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Baked Calf's Liver with Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Flour and season the liver with cayenne pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the liver alternately with bread crumbs and chopped bacon.

  2. In a bowl, mix boiling water with butter, onion, and parsley, then pour over the liver.

  3. Bake for about 30 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Calf's liver
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender when cooked gently in the oven.
Bacon
Releases fat as it cooks, adding moisture and savory flavor to the liver.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and a smooth, moist texture.
Bread crumbs
Layered with the liver to absorb juices and help give the dish body.
Browned flour
Lightly coats the liver and helps thicken the liquid into a light sauce.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling water mixture over the liver before baking. Boiling liquid starts cooking the liver and begins the moist, gentle heating in the oven. Liver is delicate, so overcooking makes it dry and grainy, and timing the bake carefully matters.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, butter, flour, parsley, bread, 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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