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Lamb's Liver

A braised lamb liver dish with onions, carrots, salt pork, tomato juice, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Lamb's Liver

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the livers

  1. Soak the livers in cold water and wash well, then score the outside.

  2. Rub the allspice, cloves, black pepper, and salt into the cuts.

Assemble and bake

  1. Arrange the livers in a deep pan on a bed of sliced onions and carrots.

  2. Cover with thin slices of salt pork.

  3. Add boiling water or broth and strained tomato juice.

  4. Cover closely and cook in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for three hours.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb's livers
Main protein; become tender and rich during long, moist cooking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour that enriches the stew as it renders.
Onions
Sweetness and aromatic base that flavours the cooking liquid.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the stew.
Strained tomato juice
Adds acidity and savoury depth to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Cover closely and cook slowly for three hours. A covered, moderate oven traps moisture so the livers simmer gently in the liquid. Higher heat or an uncovered pan would dry and toughen the livers while the tough connective tissue in the vegetables and meat needs long, gentle cooking to soften.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, liver, allspice, clove, pepper, carrot, pork):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, liver, allspice, clove, pepper, carrot, pork. 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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