Name: Calf's Liver and Bacon
Ingredients: 2 to 3 lbs calf's liver; 2 to 3 slices of bacon; pepper to taste; salt to taste; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 tablespoon flour; 2 tablespoons lemon juice; ½ cup water

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Calf's Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the liver into thin slices, matching the number of bacon slices to the liver slices.
Fry the bacon until crisp, then keep it warm on a dish.

Cook the liver

Fry the liver in the bacon fat, seasoning with pepper and salt, and lightly dredging it with flour.
Turn the liver occasionally to prevent burning; when done, arrange it around the dish with a slice of bacon between each.

Make the sauce and serve

Pour off excess bacon fat, add butter, dredge in flour, then add lemon juice and water.
Bring to a boil and pour the sauce in the center of the dish.
Garnish with lemon slices or forcemeat balls if desired.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,404 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 protein; thin slices cook quickly and stay tender when not overcooked.
Bacon: Its fat fries the liver, adding savory flavor and browning, while the crisp slices serve as garnish.
Flour: Dredging coats the liver and thickens the sauce by absorbing the melted fat and liquid.
Butter: Adds richness and fat to the sauce, carrying flavor and smoothing its texture.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich liver and bacon flavors.

The step that matters

Turn the liver occasionally. Thin liver slices cook fast and dry out or toughen when overcooked, and the sugars in the coating can scorch, so turning them regularly keeps the heat even and the texture 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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Calf's Liver and Bacon