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Chicken Livers

A dish of chicken livers sautéed in butter, flour, stock, Madeira, and Worcestershire sauce, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Norton, Caroline Trask · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken Livers

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the livers

  1. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter in a chafing dish or sauce pan over the fire.

  2. When hot, add the livers cut into pieces.

  3. Turn them to brown on all sides and dredge with flour.

  4. Add a cup of stock after they have been cooking five minutes.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

  6. Add one-fourth cup of Madeira or sherry and a few stoned olives.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

635Calories
16 gProtein
13 gFat
113 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Soy Sauce1 tbsp (15ml)9
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Meatnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Norton, Caroline Trask. 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. See the original page.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Chicken livers (in the method)
Provide the main body and rich flavor of the dish as they brown and soften.
Flour
Dredged over the browned livers to help thicken the pan juices into a light sauce.
Stock
Adds liquid to the pan, loosening browned bits and forming the sauce with the flour.
Madeira
Adds a sweet, fortified-wine flavor and acidity that deepens the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the livers on all sides. Browning over firm heat builds flavor through the Maillard reaction. Crowding the pan or stirring too little steams the livers, leaving them grey and bland.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, clove, flour, meat, onion, sauce, pepper):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, clove, flour, meat, onion, sauce, 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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