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Ragout of Liver

A savory ragout made with liver, bacon, onion, and a spiced gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ragout of Liver

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the liver

  1. Heat dripping in a frying pan.

  2. Add onion, parsley, and bacon.

  3. Cook until hot.

  4. Add liver pieces.

  5. Fry until brown, turning often.

  6. Remove liver and keep warm in a covered dish.

Make the gravy

  1. Strain the gravy.

  2. Rinse the frying pan.

  3. Return the pan to heat with the gravy and butter mixed with flour.

  4. Stir until smooth and brown.

  5. Gradually add boiling water and lemon juice.

  6. Add pickle and curry powder mixed with cold water.

  7. Boil sharply.

  8. Pour over liver.

Serve

  1. Add boiling water to the pan under the dish.

  2. Cover.

  3. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Liver
Browned in fat to develop flavour, and forms the body of the dish.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour into the gravy.
Breakfast bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat and savoury flavour to the base.
Onion
Softens and adds sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stir the flour and butter until smooth and brown. Cooking the flour in fat until it browns develops flavour and avoids raw starch taste. Adding liquid too early or without stirring can leave lumps, so the roux must be smooth before the boiling water goes in.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, liver, butter, flour, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, liver, butter, flour, lemon. 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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