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Liver, Braised

Braised liver served with a vegetable bed, bacon, and a reduced gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Liver, Braised

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the liver.

  2. Season the liver with pepper, grated lemon peel, and powdered herbs.

  3. Layer sliced vegetables in a stewpan to form a bed.

  4. Cover the bed with slices of bacon.

  5. Place the liver on top of the bacon.

  6. Add more bacon on top of the liver.

  7. Cover the pan.

Braise

  1. Cook for 10 minutes.

  2. Add plain stock to half the depth of the pan.

  3. Cover with greased paper.

  4. Replace the lid.

  5. Cook gently in a 300°F (150°C) oven or on top of the range.

Glaze and serve

  1. Dish the liver.

  2. Brush the liver with glaze.

  3. Serve on a puree of vegetables or whole mushrooms, garnished with separately cooked vegetables.

  4. Skim and reduce the gravy.

  5. Pour a little over the liver.

  6. Serve the rest of the gravy in a tureen.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Liver + lemontop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together768 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver of a calf, sheep, or lamb
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently until tender and moist.
Slices of bacon
Lines and covers the liver, adding fat and savoury flavour as it cooks.
Plain stock
Provides cooking liquid that keeps the liver moist and forms the gravy.
Sliced vegetables (for bed)
Raise the liver off the pan base and flavour the braising liquid as they cook.

The step that matters

Cook gently with the lid on. Liver turns tough and dry when overcooked or boiled. Gentle, covered heat with stock keeps the proteins tender and the meat moist.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Red currantfits less well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper. 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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