Name: Lamb's Liver Croquettes
Ingredients: ½ pound cooked lamb's liver; ¼ pound cooked bacon; 2 eggs; ¼ cup butter; herbs (to taste); parsley (to taste); ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; 1½ cups bread crumbs

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lamb's Liver Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

Chop the cooked liver and bacon together.
Beat the eggs lightly and mix in the butter.
Add the chopped meat, herbs, parsley, salt, and pepper to the egg mixture.
Stir in the bread crumbs until the mixture is stiff enough to form balls.

Shape and fry

Divide the mixture into portions, roll each in egg and then in bread crumbs.
Fry the croquettes in deep fat until golden brown.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,322 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,165 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb's liver: Provides the main meaty flavour and body of the croquettes.
Eggs: Bind the mixture together and form a coating that helps the croquettes hold their shape.
Bread crumbs: Stiffen the mixture so it can be shaped, and form a crisp golden outer crust when fried.
Bacon: Adds fat and savoury, smoky flavour to the meat mixture.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, enriching the flavour and tenderness of the mixture.

The step that matters

Stiffening the mixture with bread crumbs. The mixture must be firm enough to form balls. Too little bread crumb leaves the croquettes loose and prone to breaking apart in hot fat, while the right firmness lets the crust set evenly when fried.

“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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Oatmeal Bread51 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Lamb's Liver Croquettes