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Liver and Bacon

Sliced calf liver and bacon simmered in a mushroom ketchup sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the liver carefully, then cut it into thin slices and dry with a towel.

  2. Slice the bacon thinly and remove the rind.

Cook

  1. In a frying pan over medium heat, cook the bacon for 5 minutes, turning once.

  2. Remove the bacon and place it on a hot platter in a warming oven.

  3. In the bacon grease, fry the liver slices for 10 minutes, turning once.

  4. Transfer the liver to the platter with the bacon.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Stir the flour into the remaining grease until well combined and browned.

  2. Add the stock to the flour mixture and stir until it boils.

  3. Mix in the mushroom ketchup, pepper, salt, and caramel, then pour over the liver and bacon.

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. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  2. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Liver + mushroomtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together572 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + ketchuptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + mushroomtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,253 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

Calf's liver
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked quickly to stay tender.
Bacon
Adds salty, savoury fat that browns and flavours the pan drippings.
Flour
Thickens the pan drippings and stock into a smooth gravy as it cooks.
Second stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy, adding savoury depth.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the liver. Liver is lean and delicate; cooking it too long toughens its proteins and leaves it dry and grainy. Thin slices and a timed fry help keep it tender.

“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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