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Fricassee of Calf’s Liver

A stew of calf liver, onions, parsley, gravy, and wine, browned and simmered.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricassee of Calf’s Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Cut the liver into strips as long as a finger and more than half an inch thick.

  2. Dredge the liver with flour and fry until light brown.

Make the fricassee

  1. In a saucepan, heat the minced onions and parsley in the gravy.

  2. Add the fried liver and stew together for ten minutes.

  3. Stir in the wine and heat through 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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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 body of the dish; frying gives it a browned exterior and a tender interior.
Flour
Coats the liver so it browns evenly and the surface crisps during frying.
Gravy
Provides moisture and savory depth as the liquid the liver stews in.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the hot gravy.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Frying the floured liver until light brown. Liver overcooks quickly and turns tough and dry if fried too long. Stopping at light browning keeps it tender, since it cooks further when it stews in the gravy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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