Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Liver Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the livers of fowls in water for a few minutes.
Rub the livers finely with some of the boiling water.
Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and butter rolled in flour.
Bring the sauce to a boil, then remove it from the heat.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,065 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,375 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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
- Livers of fowls
- Provide the main body and rich flavor of the sauce once rubbed smooth.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
- Flour
- Rolled with the butter, it thickens the sauce as it heats.
The step that matters
Bring the sauce to a boil, then remove it from the heat. Flour thickens only once it reaches a boil, so the sauce must be heated enough to set. Boiling too long can cause the butter to separate and the sauce to turn greasy or grainy.
“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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