Skip to main content
Main

Fried Beef Liver

Fried beef liver slices coated in flour or breadcrumbs, beaten egg, and fried in hot fat with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fried Beef Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef liver into slices about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Pour boiling water over the liver to seal the pores and retain juices.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the liver in flour or bread crumbs, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  2. Dip the coated liver in beaten egg.

  3. Fry in hot fat mixed with ⅓ cup of butter until cooked through.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Beef liver
The main protein, which firms up and browns when fried.
Flour or bread crumbs
Forms a coating that browns in the hot fat and gives a crisp exterior.
Egg
Binds the coating to the liver so it stays on during frying.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the frying fat and helps browning.

The step that matters

Frying until cooked through. Liver turns dry and grainy when overcooked, while undercooked liver is unsafe to eat. The fat should be hot enough to brown the coating quickly without burning the butter.

“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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes