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To Fry Liver and Bacon

A dish of sliced liver fried with bacon, served with melted butter and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

To Fry Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the liver into slices.

Cook

  1. Fry the liver until browned.

  2. Fry the bacon.

Serve

  1. Place the liver on a dish and top with bacon.

  2. Serve with melted butter in a bowl and garnish with sliced lemon.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Liver + lemontop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together768 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

Liver
Main protein; browning on the frying surface gives it savory flavor and a seared crust.
Bacon
Fat rendered during frying adds savory flavor and crispness to the dish.
Butter
Melted butter served alongside adds richness and fat to the liver.
Lemon
Sliced lemon garnish adds acidity that brightens the rich liver and bacon.

The step that matters

Fry the liver until browned. Liver cooks quickly and turns dry and grainy if overcooked, so it should be browned on the outside while still tender inside.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Grapefits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, butter. 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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