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Fried Goose Liver

Pan-fried goose liver served with asparagus tips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fried Goose Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Carefully remove the gall from the goose liver.

  2. Soak the liver in ½ cup milk diluted with water for 2 hours.

  3. Dry the liver well, then season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Dip the liver in the beaten egg, then coat with flour mixed with broth.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat butter in a pan and fry the liver until light brown for about 5 minutes, turning it several times.

  2. Serve on a hot platter with asparagus tips.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + asparagustop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + asparagustop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Goose liver
The main ingredient, cooked by frying until its outside browns and the inside stays tender.
Egg
Binds the flour and broth coating so it adheres to the liver during frying.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that helps the outside brown and crisp when fried.
Milk
Soaks the liver to soften it and mellow its strong flavour before cooking.
Butter
Fat for frying that adds richness and promotes browning on the coating.

The step that matters

Fry until light brown, turning several times. Liver is delicate and overcooks quickly, turning dry and grainy. Turning it often on moderate heat browns the coating evenly while the interior stays tender and moist.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, milk, pepper, egg, flour, 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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