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Liver Croquettes

A dish of fried liver croquettes seasoned with pepper, salt, parsley, onion, and sage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Liver Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the calf’s liver until nearly done, then mince it very fine.

  2. Season the minced liver with pepper, salt, parsley, onion, and sage or sweet herbs.

  3. Mix the seasoned liver with a beaten egg until well combined.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the croquettes in boiling lard until golden brown.

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 + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 body of the croquettes and gives them their rich flavor.
Egg
Binds the minced liver so the croquettes hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the filling.

The step that matters

Frying in boiling lard. The lard must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the croquettes absorb extra fat and turn greasy before the crust sets.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pepper, parsley, sage, egg, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, parsley, sage, egg, bread. 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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