Skip to main content
Main

Liver, Poultry, and Game-Bread

A liver pâté made with capon liver, game meats, and panada, baked in a bacon-lined mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Liver, Poultry, and Game-Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the liver base

  1. Pound the panada well and mix in the butter or grated bacon.

  2. Pound the fine capon liver until smooth and add it to the panada mixture.

  3. Continue to pound for an additional 15 minutes.

  4. Mix in the egg yolks, seasoning salt, sweet herbs, and velouté until well combined.

  5. Pass the mixture through a sieve into a bowl.

Add the garnishes and shape

  1. Add the diced calves' teats, red tongue, and truffles to the mixture.

  2. If using, add the gherkins and mix well.

  3. Line a cylindrical mold with thin slices of bacon and fill it with the mixture.

  4. Cover the top with more bacon and gently tap the mold to shape the mixture.

Cook

  1. Place the mold in a stew pot to cook.

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. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Liver + truffletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + truffletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,604 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + livertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Panada
Provides starch and body that helps the pâté hold together when cooked.
Capon liver
Forms the smooth, rich main body of the pâté.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set firmly when cooked.
Butter
Adds fat for a moist, tender texture and rich flavour.
Velouté
Adds moisture and a smooth sauce-like body to the mixture.
Truffles
Contribute a strong, earthy aroma and luxurious flavour.

The step that matters

Pounding the liver base. Pounding the liver until very smooth and then sieving it removes fibres and lumps, giving a fine, even texture; under-pounded liver makes a grainy pâté.

“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.

More liver pâté recipes

Goose 6Chicken 5 See all 8 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes