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Canapes of Chicken Liver

A spreadable paste of sautéed chicken livers, onion, butter, and anchovy essence served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Canapes of Chicken Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Sauté chicken livers and onion in hot fat until tender.

  2. Smooth the mixture to a paste.

  3. Add salt, cayenne, butter, and anchovy essence to taste.

Serve

  1. Spread the mixture on toast.

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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

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

  3. Liver + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + anchovytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken livers
Provide the main body and rich flavor of the paste.
Butter
Adds fat and smoothness, giving the paste a silkier, spreadable texture.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth when softened in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Sauté until tender. Livers cooked too briefly stay grainy and pink inside, while overcooking makes them dry and bitter-tasting. Cook until just firm and no longer pink, then smooth them into a paste while still warm for the best texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, liver, pepper, butter, anchovy):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, liver, pepper, butter, anchovy. 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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