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Calf's Liver and Bacon

A dish of sliced calf liver fried with bacon and seasoned with flour and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Calf's Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bacon and liver into thin slices.

  2. Roll the liver in flour and season with pepper.

Cook

  1. Place the bacon in a chafing dish and cook until the fat is rendered.

  2. Move the bacon to one side of the dish.

  3. Add the liver to the dish and cook until brown and tender, turning often.

  4. Serve a slice of bacon with each piece of liver.

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 into the pan that cooks the liver and adds salty, smoky flavour.
Calf's liver
Is the main dish; cooks quickly to a tender, browned exterior.
Flour
Coats the liver so it browns better and forms a light crust.

The step that matters

Cooking the liver until brown and tender. Liver is lean and cooks fast; overcooking makes it dry and grainy. Turning it often browns the surface evenly while the inside stays 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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