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Calf S Liver and Bacon

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and flour 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. Slice the liver into ¼‑inch thick pieces.

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

  3. Dry the liver with a cloth.

  4. Cut the bacon into thin slices, equal to the number of liver slices.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the bacon until crispy, then keep it warm.

  2. In the same pan, fry the liver seasoned with pepper and dredged in flour until browned.

  3. Serve each slice of liver topped with a slice of 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 + flourtop 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

Calf's liver
Provides the main body of the dish, cooked to a browned, tender texture.
Bacon
Adds salty, savoury fat that crisps in the pan and flavours the liver.
Flour
Forms a light coating that helps the liver brown during frying.

The step that matters

Frying the liver. Liver overcooks quickly and turns dry and grainy. Cooking it briefly over fairly high heat keeps it tender while the flour coating browns.

“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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