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Pate De Foie Gras Sandwiches

A sandwich of foie gras pâté made from goose livers, eggs, butter, onion, salt, and pepper on toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pate De Foie Gras Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet and cook the goose livers until soft.

  2. Mash the cooked livers with the hard boiled eggs in a bowl.

  3. Add salt, pepper, and grated onion to the mixture and combine well.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture on the small slices of 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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Liver + buttertop 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

Goose livers
Provide the rich, soft, savoury base that gives the spread its main texture and flavour.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and a firm, crumbly texture that helps bind the mashed liver mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness while cooking the livers, helping them turn soft and smooth.
Grated onion
Adds a sharp, aromatic note that balances the richness of the liver.

The step that matters

Cook the goose livers until soft. Undercooked livers stay firm and grainy, so they will not mash into a smooth spread; cooking them gently until just soft gives a creamy texture without drying them out.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, butter, egg, 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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