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Braised Liver with Green String Beans

Braised calf liver served with green string beans, seasoned with bacon, herbs, and a wine glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Braised Liver with Green String Beans

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the liver

  1. Remove the skin from the calf’s liver and lard the upper part with two rows of bacon.

  2. If you don’t have a larding needle, make incisions and insert bits of bacon.

  3. Sprinkle the liver with coarse sea salt and celery salt, then dredge with flour.

  4. Cook the trimmings in a hot iron frying pan until rendered.

  5. Add the liver to the pan and sear until browned, turning frequently.

Braise

  1. Transfer the liver to a braising pan and add carrot, onion, parsley, bay leaf, clove, peppercorns, and brown stock or water.

  2. Cover the pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours and 15 minutes.

  3. Baste the liver five times during baking.

Make the glaze and serve

  1. Remove the liver from the pan.

  2. Strain the stock.

  3. Reduce the strained stock to a glaze.

  4. Add white wine to the glaze.

  5. Pour the glaze over the liver.

  6. Serve the liver on a hot dish surrounded by green string beans.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Calf’s liver
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender and moist during long, covered braising.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that melts into the liver and seasons the braise.
Flour
Coats the liver so it browns well during searing and helps thicken the glaze.
Brown stock or water
Provides the braising liquid that keeps the liver moist and becomes the base of the glaze.
White wine
Adds acidity and brightness to the reduced stock, balancing the rich liver.

The step that matters

Sear the liver until browned. Searing creates browned flavor through the Maillard reaction on the floured surface. Turning often prevents scorching, and the browned crust adds flavor to the final glaze.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, celery, flour, carrot, parsley, clove, white wine):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, celery, flour, carrot, parsley, clove, white wine. 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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