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Calf's Liver and Bacon

A dish of sliced calf liver fried with bacon and served in a ketchup‑flavored 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 ↓

Calf's Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the calf's liver into slices, each about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Cut the bacon into thin rashers and fry them until crispy; drain on a plate.

  3. Add the bacon fat to the frying pan.

Cook the liver

  1. Coat each piece of liver with flour and fry in the bacon fat until browned on both sides.

  2. Arrange the liver and bacon in a circular pattern on a serving plate, alternating pieces.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the fat from the pan, then add a little flour, ketchup, pepper, salt, and stock or water.

  2. Mix in minced gherkins or mushrooms if desired, and stir over heat until the sauce just boils.

  3. Pour the sauce over the liver and bacon before serving.

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. Ketchup + flourtop 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. Ketchup + mushroomtop 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
Is the main meat, cooked quickly so it browns outside while staying tender inside.
Bacon
Adds salty, savoury flavour and fat that is reused to fry the liver.
Flour
Coats the liver so it browns well and helps thicken the sauce.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the sauce.
Stock or water
Loosens the flour and fat into a pourable sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the liver. Liver is lean and cooks fast; over-frying toughens it and makes it dry and grainy. Brief, high heat browns the outside while keeping the inside 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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