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Liver and Bacon Balls

A dish of boiled liver and bacon formed into balls, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Liver and Bacon Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the boiled calf's liver and bacon very fine.

  2. Add pepper and form the mixture into balls or small cakes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each ball in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 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
Gives the balls their body and rich, savory flavor.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that keeps the balls moist.
Egg
Helps the bread crumbs stick to each ball before frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when fried.

The step that matters

Fry in hot fat. The fat must be hot enough to sear the crumb coating quickly. This forms a crust that seals in moisture and limits how much oil the balls absorb, so they fry golden rather than greasy or falling apart.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pepper, egg, bread):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, egg, bread. 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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