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Liver Soup, Brown

A hearty soup made with bacon, onion, minced beef, carrot, and calf's liver, seasoned with pepper, nutmeg, herbs, and roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 Soup, Brown

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the bacon, onion, cloves, peppercorns, minced beef, and grated carrot.

  2. Fry for 1 minute, then add enough water to cover the ingredients.

  3. Simmer until the moisture has nearly evaporated.

Make the soup

  1. Pour in the stock and cook gently for 1 to 2 hours.

  2. Press the meat occasionally, then strain the soup.

  3. Add the fried and pounded calf's liver, seasoned with salt, black pepper, nutmeg, and herbs.

  4. Stir in a little brown roux and bring to a boil.

Serve

  1. Serve with strips of French roll dipped in hot butter and crisped in the oven.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean minced beef
Provides the rich meaty body that flavours the stock as it cooks down.
Calf's liver
Adds a dense, savoury richness and a smooth texture when pounded into the soup.
Brown roux
Thickens the soup slightly and adds a toasted, nutty depth of flavour.
Stock made from bones
Forms the main liquid and carries the savoury flavour of the soup.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens and builds the base.

The step that matters

Simmer until the moisture has nearly evaporated. Reducing the initial liquid concentrates the meat and vegetable flavours before the stock is added, so the soup does not taste thin or watery.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, beef, carrot, liver, pepper, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, beef, carrot, liver, pepper, nutmeg, 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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