Skip to main content
Main

Liver with Herbs

A sautéed liver dish flavored with onions, mushrooms, parsley, and a broth-based herb sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Liver with Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Dredge liver pieces in flour.

Cook

  1. Melt butter in a frying pan and fry liver until cooked.

  2. Remove liver and keep warm.

  3. In the same pan, fry onions, mushrooms, and parsley until soft.

  4. Add broth or boiling water to the pan and simmer for a few minutes.

  5. Pour the herb mixture over the liver and serve.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 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

Liver
Is the main protein, cooked quickly so it stays tender.
Flour
Coats the liver pieces, helping them brown and thickening the pan juices.
Butter
Adds fat for frying and a rich, savory flavor.
Onion
Softens and adds sweetness to the herb mixture.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy savory flavor as they soften.
Broth or boiling water
Loosens the browned bits from the pan to form a simple sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the liver until just done. Liver turns tough and grainy when overcooked, because its proteins tighten with prolonged heat. Cook it until just set and remove it promptly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes