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Ontario Liver

A liver dish mashed with oatflakes, seasoned, molded, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Ontario Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Boil the liver until tender.

  2. While warm, mash the liver finely with a wire potato masher.

  3. Season the mashed liver with salt, pepper, and onion juice.

Make the porridge

  1. Scald the oatflakes and cook them thick but not too soft.

Mould and fry

  1. Mix the porridge and liver together until well combined.

  2. Pack the mixture into a mold.

  3. Once cold and firm, cut into slices and fry.

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Provides the main body, rich flavour, and meaty texture of the dish.
Oatflakes
Thicken the mixture and give it body so it holds together when cold and sliced.

The step that matters

Cook the oatflakes thick but not too soft. Oatflakes keep absorbing liquid and swelling as they cool. If they are overcooked into a soft mush, the mixture becomes loose and will not set firm enough to slice and fry cleanly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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