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Bacon and Liver

A skillet dish of liver fried with bacon, seasoned with flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bacon and Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Pour boiling water over the liver to form a thin skin.

  2. Scrape the skin off with a sharp knife.

  3. Dredge the liver in flour and season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Cook

  1. Cut the bacon as thin as possible.

  2. Place the bacon in a skillet with the liver.

  3. Fry slowly until well done.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' liver
Is the main protein, cooked until well done with bacon.
Bacon
Adds fat and salty, smoky flavour as it renders into the skillet.
Flour
Dries the liver surface and helps form a light coating.

The step that matters

Fry slowly until well done. Liver cooked too fast on high heat can toughen and dry out on the outside before the centre is cooked. Slow frying gives even cooking and lets the bacon fat render gradually.

“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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