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Calf’s Liver and Bacon

A dish of sliced calf liver cooked with bacon, butter, and optional egg and olive oil, served with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Calf’s Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Pan-fry

  1. Toss the calf's liver in butter until cooked.

  2. Fry the bacon rashers in the same pan after the liver.

  3. Serve the liver garnished with the bacon.

  4. Dip liver slices in seasoned beaten egg and olive oil.

  5. Fry the dipped liver slices quickly.

Skewer and broil

  1. Skewer liver and bacon pieces.

  2. Dip the skewered pieces in oil.

  3. Sprinkle the skewered pieces with bread crumbs.

  4. Broil the skewered pieces.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Liver + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together731 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

Calf's liver
Is the main protein, providing a rich, tender texture when cooked only briefly.
Bacon
Adds fat and salty, smoky flavour that complements the liver.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, aiding browning and rich flavour in the pan.
Eggs
Bind the seasoning and help the bread crumbs stick to the liver slices.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the outside of the liver pieces.

The step that matters

Fry the dipped liver slices quickly.. Calf's liver is lean and delicate, and overcooking pushes its proteins tight, making it dry and tough. A brief, hot fry sets the coating while keeping the centre 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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