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Calf's Liver and Bacon

A dish of sliced calf liver fried in bacon fat, served with bacon and a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Calf's Liver and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver and bacon

  1. Pour hot water over the liver and let it sit for a few minutes to remove blood.

  2. Dry the liver with a cloth.

  3. Cut the bacon into thin slices.

  4. Fry the bacon until crisp.

  5. Keep the bacon warm.

  6. Season the liver with pepper and salt.

  7. Dredge the liver in flour.

Fry and serve the liver

  1. Fry the liver in the bacon fat until browned.

  2. Serve the liver topped with a slice of bacon.

Make the gravy

  1. Remove most fat from the pan.

  2. Add butter and flour, and mix well.

  3. Add water, salt, and pepper, then boil.

  4. Serve in a gravy boat.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 dish, cooked quickly so it browns outside and stays tender inside.
Bacon
Its fat browns the liver and its crisp slices add salt and smoky flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the gravy base.
Flour
Dredging helps the liver brown, and flour cooked in butter thickens the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the liver briefly. Liver is lean and its proteins tighten quickly with heat. Searing it briefly over medium-high heat keeps it tender, while overcooking makes it dry, firm, and grainy.

“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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