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Liver and Bacon

A dish of sliced calf liver and bacon served with a brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bacon into thin rashers.

  2. Slice the liver into ⅓ inch thick pieces.

Cook the liver and bacon

  1. Fry the bacon until brown and place it on a dish.

  2. Dredge flour on both sides of the liver and fry slowly until brown.

  3. Pour away the fat from the pan.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Dredge 2 teaspoons of flour into the frying pan.

  2. Pour in 1 cup of boiling water and add pepper and salt.

  3. Shake the pan until the gravy thickens and browns.

  4. Pour the gravy over the liver and bacon, and serve immediately.

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. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 recipes

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

  3. Liver + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,418 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

Bacon
Renders fat for frying and adds salty, smoky flavor to the dish.
Calves' liver
Forms the main dish; frying browns its surface and sets a firm, tender texture.
Flour
Coats the liver for browning and later thickens the gravy as it cooks in the pan.

The step that matters

Frying the liver slowly. Liver turns tough and dry when overcooked. Slow frying over moderate heat browns the flour coating 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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