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Liver and Bacon

A dish of fried liver seasoned with salt and pepper, cooked in bacon fat and served with bacon.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Slice the liver and soak it in cold saltwater for 30 minutes.

  2. Wipe the liver dry.

  3. Season the liver with pepper and salt.

  4. Roll the liver in flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the bacon in a clean frying pan until clear and somewhat crisp.

  2. Keep the bacon warm over boiling water.

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

  4. Shake off excess grease from the liver.

  5. Arrange the liver on a hot platter.

  6. Garnish the liver with bacon.

  7. Optionally, fry sliced onion in the bacon fat with the liver for added flavor.

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. Pepper + flourtop 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, giving a rich, meaty texture when browned.
Breakfast bacon
Renders fat for frying the liver and adds salty, smoky flavor.
Flour
Coats the liver so it browns well and forms a light crust.

The step that matters

Fry the liver in the bacon fat until browned. Liver overcooks quickly and turns dry and grainy. Frying briefly over sufficient heat browns the surface through Maillard reactions while keeping the inside tender.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, flour. 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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