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Sauce

Liver and Parsley Sauce

A sauce made by boiling liver, mincing it, and mixing with parsley and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Liver and Parsley Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Ensure the liver is perfectly fresh, then wash it.

  2. Boil the liver in ¼ cup of water for five minutes.

  3. Mince the liver very finely and pound it in a mortar.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the pounded liver with 1 tablespoon of scalded and chopped parsley.

  2. Stir the mixture into ¼ cup of melted butter.

  3. Heat the sauce on the fire until hot, but do not let it boil.

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. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Liver + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. 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
Provides the main body and rich flavour of the sauce once pounded smooth.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying the flavour and giving the sauce a smooth texture.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, green aroma that balances the richness of the liver and butter.

The step that matters

Heat the sauce on the fire until hot, but do not let it boil.. Butter can separate and the egg-free liver mixture can turn grainy or curdled if overheated. Gentle heat keeps the emulsion of fat and liquid smooth and the flavour fresh.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, 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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