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Liver and Bacon

A dish of sliced liver fried with bacon and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the bacon thinly and remove the rind.

  2. Slice the liver into pieces and coat them in flour.

Cook the bacon

  1. Fry the bacon in a frying pan for about 10 minutes, adding a small piece of dripping if the bacon is not very fatty.

  2. Turn the bacon when one side is fried.

  3. Once the bacon is cooked, remove it from the pan and keep it warm.

Fry the liver and serve

  1. Fry the liver slices in the same pan, a few at a time, ensuring they do not overlap.

  2. If desired, add sliced onion to the pan with the liver.

  3. Fry the liver for about 15 minutes, turning occasionally until it is brown inside.

  4. Serve the liver on the dish with the bacon.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Liver
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to a firm, browned texture on the outside.
Bacon
Releases fat into the pan and adds salty, savoury flavour to the liver.
Flour
Coats the liver slices so they brown more evenly and form a light crust.

The step that matters

Fry the liver without crowding the pan. Frying a few slices at a time, with no overlap, lets the pan stay hot so the surfaces brown rather than steam. Crowding lowers the pan temperature and leaves the liver grey and wet.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, flour, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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