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Sauce

Liver Sauce for Fish

A sauce made by stewing liver in fish gravy, thickened with butter and flour, seasoned with mustard, salt, and chili vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Liver Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stew the liver in the fish gravy until tender.

  2. Mince the liver finely and pound it in a mortar with dry mustard.

  3. Thicken the gravy with butter rolled in flour.

  4. Add the minced liver, salt, and chili vinegar to the gravy.

  5. Bring to a boil and serve.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Liver + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 minced and stewed.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when rolled with butter and stirred in.
Butter
Adds richness and helps flour thicken the gravy smoothly.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with butter rolled in flour. Flour must be cooked into the hot gravy so it swells and thickens evenly; adding it raw or in lumps leaves starchy clumps and a floury taste.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, fish, butter, flour, vinegar. 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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