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Liver Dumplings

Liver dumplings made from ground liver, onion, eggs, flour, and spices, boiled in broth and served with bread sauce and apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Liver Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dumplings

  1. Grind the liver with the onion.

  2. Beat in the eggs and add salt, pepper, and spices.

  3. Mix in the flour to hold the mixture together.

Cook the dumplings

  1. Drop by tablespoons into boiling beef broth or salted water.

  2. Boil until done, then place on a platter.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Pour bread sauce over the dumplings.

  2. Serve with apple sauce in a separate dish.

  3. Fry breadcrumbs in butter, season, and add enough milk to create a sauce.

  4. Let the sauce boil thoroughly before serving.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Liver
Forms the main body of the dumplings and gives them their rich flavor.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help the dumplings set when heated.
Flour
Adds structure so the dumplings hold their shape in the liquid.
Breadcrumbs
Thicken the butter and milk into a sauce with body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the breadcrumbs for flavor.
Milk
Makes the breadcrumb mixture smooth and creamy as a sauce.

The step that matters

Drop the dumplings into boiling liquid. Eggs and flour set when heated, so the dumplings must enter boiling liquid to firm up quickly. If the liquid is not boiling, they can break apart or turn soggy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, pepper, flour, butter, milk. 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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