Name: Liver and Bacon with Forcemeat
Ingredients: slices of liver; forcemeat; thin slices of bacon; ½ cup stock; browned flour; mashed potatoes

Why it works: Flour and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,355 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Liver and Bacon with Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Spread forcemeat on liver slices.
Top with a thin slice of bacon.
Place in a baking dish.
Pour stock around the liver.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.
Thicken gravy with browned flour.
Serve with a border of mashed potatoes.

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.

Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Liver + potatotop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together108 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Liver + flourtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,418 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).