Skip to main content
Main

Pig's Liver, Baked

A baked dish of sliced pig's liver layered with bacon and mashed potatoes, seasoned with pepper, parsley, onion, and sage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pig's Liver, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Soak the pig's liver and cut it into slices less than ½ inch thick.

  2. Boil and mash the potatoes.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer half of the mashed potatoes in a well-buttered mold.

  2. Add a layer of liver slices and bacon slices, then sprinkle with pepper, parsley, onion, and sage.

  3. Repeat the layers, finishing with a layer of mashed potatoes on top.

  4. Pour ½ cup of boiling stock or water over the dish.

  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours.

  6. Turn the mold onto a hot dish and brown the top before serving.

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 + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 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

Pig's liver
Forms the main meat layers, giving a rich, savoury flavour and dense texture.
Potatoes
Form the mashed layers that hold moisture and give a soft, starchy body.
Bacon
Melts fat into the layers, adding moisture and savoury flavour to the liver.
Stock or water
Adds moisture during baking so the layers stay tender rather than drying out.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling stock or water over the dish before baking. Liquid added to the layered dish creates steam in the oven, keeping the liver and potatoes moist while the dense layers cook through over the long bake.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, potato, pepper, parsley, sage. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes