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Stewed Calf's Liver

A dish of finely chopped calf's liver stewed with bacon, butter, egg, pepper, and salt, served on fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Stewed Calf's Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the calf's liver and chop it finely.

  2. Chop the bacon finely and add it to the liver.

Cook and finish

  1. Return the mixture to a saucepan and cook until tender, skimming as needed.

  2. Once tender, season with pepper, salt, and butter.

  3. Thicken the mixture with the egg and serve on slices of fried bread.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Liver + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,177 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and finely textured when simmered.
Bacon
Adds savory fat and flavor to the chopped liver mixture.
Egg
Thickens the mixture as it sets with gentle heat.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with the egg. Egg proteins set when heated, so the egg should be stirred in off the boil or over very gentle heat. Strong heat can scramble it and leave the mixture grainy.

“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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