Name: Ox or Calf's Liver Fried with Bacon
Ingredients: 1 lb ox or calf's liver, sliced ½ inch thick; 2 oz clear dripping (or cooking oil); flour for dredging; rashers of bacon; onions, finely sliced (optional); parsley for garnish (optional); lemon slices for garnish (optional)

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ox or Calf's Liver Fried with Bacon

Ingredients

1 lb ox or calf's liver, sliced ½ inch thick
2 oz clear dripping (or cooking oil)
flour for dredging
rashers of bacon
onions, finely sliced (optional)
parsley for garnish (optional)
lemon slices for garnish (optional)

Directions

Melt the dripping in a frying pan over medium heat.
Dredge the liver slices in flour and fry them in the pan until browned.
In the same pan, fry the bacon until crispy.
Place the fried liver on a hot dish and top with the bacon.
Optionally, garnish with browned onions, parsley, and lemon slices.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,420 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,404 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

Liver: Forms the main body of the dish and browns on the outside while staying tender inside.
Flour: Forms a thin coating that promotes browning and helps the liver crisp at the surface.
Bacon: Adds salty, savoury fat that flavours the pan and contrasts with the liver.
Dripping: Conducts heat for frying and adds rich flavour to the liver and bacon.

The step that matters

Fry the liver until browned, not overcooked. Liver turns dry and grainy when overcooked, so it should be browned quickly over steady heat and removed while still slightly pink inside.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, flour, parsley, lemon):

Shallotfits better
Arrowrootfits better
Carrotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, flour, parsley, lemon. 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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Ox or Calf's Liver Fried with Bacon