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To Fry Liver Only

A quick fried liver dish cooked in ghee with green chillies, onions, ginger, and a splash of hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,595 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Fry Liver Only

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and prepare the liver as in recipe No. 303.

  2. Cut the liver into lengthwise slices.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat ghee in a frying pan and fry the liver until browned.

  2. Add green chillies, sliced onions, pounded green ginger, and salt.

  3. Continue frying until the liver is tender.

  4. Remove the liver and place it in a deep dish.

  5. Make a gravy by adding 1-2 tablespoons of hot water to the pan, stir, and pour over the liver.

  6. Serve hot for the best flavor.

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. Onion + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Ghee + gingertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together988 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Liver + gingertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Ghee + oniontop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Is the main ingredient, browned and cooked until tender in the pan.
Ghee
Fat that fries the liver and helps it brown.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry alongside the liver.

The step that matters

Continue frying until the liver is tender. Liver overcooks quickly and turns dry and grainy when fried too long, so it should be checked often and removed once tender.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, ghee, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, ghee, onion. 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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