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Liver a LA Francaise

A French-style liver dish baked with bacon, breadcrumbs, stock, and Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Liver a LA Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and bake

  1. Slice, wash, and dry the liver.

  2. Lay slices on a well-greased baking sheet.

  3. Sprinkle seasoning mixture on each piece.

  4. Place a strip of bacon on top of each piece.

  5. Pour in water or stock.

  6. Cook slowly in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until tender, about 30 minutes.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Place liver on a hot dish.

  2. Add Worcestershire sauce to the gravy.

  3. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  4. Pour the gravy around the liver.

  5. Sprinkle browned breadcrumbs on the bacon.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender when cooked slowly.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour as it renders over the liver during baking.
Stock
Provides moisture for gently cooking the liver and forms the base of the gravy.
Browned breadcrumbs
Adds a crisp, golden topping on the bacon.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds a savoury, tangy flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until just tender. Liver is lean and protein-rich, so long or high heat makes its proteins tighten and turn dry and grainy. Gentle moderate heat and checking for tenderness at about 30 minutes keeps it moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, sauce, pepper, nutmeg, egg, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, sauce, pepper, nutmeg, egg, parsley. 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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