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Liver, Devilled

A chilled liver dish seasoned with spices, bread crumbs, and port wine, then boiled and sliced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Liver, Devilled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine chopped calf's liver, pickled pork, cloves, nutmeg, cayenne, black pepper, salt, lemon peel, and bread crumbs in a bowl.

  2. Moisten the mixture with port wine and press it tightly into a jar with a lid.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the jar in a saucepan and add boiling water to cover three-quarters of the jar.

  2. Boil for 2 hours, then remove the jar and let it cool with the lid off.

  3. Once cooled, turn it out and slice thinly to serve cold.

  4. Alternatively, slice the liver, brush with mustard and chutney, sprinkle with cayenne, dip in melted butter, and grill or broil.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Forms the main body of the spread, giving it a rich, dense texture when cooked.
Pickled pork
Adds salty, tangy, savoury flavour that stands up to the rich liver.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs moisture and helps bind the mixture so it holds together when sliced.
Port wine
Moistens the mixture and adds sweetness and depth of flavour.

The step that matters

Pressing the mixture into the jar. Packing it tightly removes air pockets, so the loaf cooks evenly and slices cleanly when cold rather than crumbling.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pork, clove, nutmeg, pepper, bread, port wine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Plumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pork, clove, nutmeg, pepper, bread, port wine. 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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