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A Nice Way of Cooking Calf's or Pig's Liver

A method for cooking calf or pig liver in a butter and nutmeg gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

A Nice Way of Cooking Calf's or Pig's Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Cut the liver into slices half an inch thick.

  2. Pour boiling water over the liver and then pour it off completely.

Cook and make the gravy

  1. Let the liver brown in its own juices, turning until brown on both sides.

  2. In a frying pan, add enough cold water to make the desired amount of gravy.

  3. Simmer in a little onion, add salt and nutmeg, and a bit of butter.

  4. Boil once, then return the liver for one more minute.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Onion + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 and browns in its own juices.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the gravy as it simmers.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the gravy.

The step that matters

Let the liver brown in its own juices. Browning relies on surface heat and dryness, so the liver must be turned until both sides are browned. Pouring off the boiling water first removes surface moisture. Liver cooked too long becomes firm and dry, so the extra minute in the gravy should be kept short.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

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