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A Nice Way of Cooking Calf's or Pig's Liver

A method for cooking calf or pig liver in butter with onion, salt, nutmeg, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

A Nice Way of Cooking Calf's or Pig's Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the liver into slices ½ inch thick.

  2. Pour boiling water over the liver and drain it completely.

Cook and finish

  1. Brown the liver in its own juices, turning until both sides are brown.

  2. Add enough cold water to the frying pan to make gravy.

  3. Add a small amount of onion, salt, nutmeg, and a bit of butter.

  4. Let it boil once, then return the liver for 1 more minute.

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. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Onion + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  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

Calf's or pig's liver
Main ingredient; browning and gentle cooking keep its texture tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the gravy and helps flavor the liver.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma to the gravy.

The step that matters

Return the liver for only 1 minute after the gravy boils. Liver is lean and cooks quickly; overcooking toughens its proteins and makes it dry and grainy, so the final minute should be brief.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, onion, butter. 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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