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Heef Liver

Beef liver slices coated in powdered crackers and fried in butter and lard, served with fried onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Heef Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the liver and cut it into ½-inch thick slices.

  2. Roll the liver slices in powdered crackers.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat butter and lard in a frying pan until smoking hot.

  2. Fry the liver quickly, ensuring it doesn't burn, until browned on both sides.

  3. Transfer the liver to a platter and cover it.

  4. In the same pan, fry the sliced onions until browned and use them to garnish the liver.

  5. Optionally, make gravy from beef drippings and pour it over the liver.

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 + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Beef + livertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together431 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

Beef liver
Is the main protein, cooked quickly to stay tender with a browned crust.
Powdered crackers
Coat the slices, forming a crisp browned crust when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour and helps the liver brown in the pan.
Lard
Provides a high-heat frying fat that browns the coating without burning quickly.
Onion
Frying until browned adds sweetness and savoury aroma as a garnish.

The step that matters

Fry the liver quickly. Liver is lean and dries out and toughens when overcooked. A hot pan and a short fry brown the coating while keeping the inside tender, so watch closely to prevent burning.

“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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