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Pork, with Liver

A stew of pork belly and sliced liver simmered with gravy, carrot, onion, sage, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pork, with Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the belly of pork until slightly salted, then slice it.

Make the stew

  1. In a pot, combine the liver, gravy, grated carrot, fried onion, sage, and pepper.

  2. Cook gently for 1.5 hours.

  3. Thicken the mixture with brown flour.

  4. Add the sliced pork and enough gravy to cover the whole.

  5. Bring to a boil.

Serve

  1. Serve with a border of pureed split peas.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + sagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together480 recipes

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

  5. Liver + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig's liver
Provides the main body and rich, dense flavour of the stew.
Belly of pork
Adds fat and savoury richness that melts into the gravy during cooking.
Brown flour
Thickens the gravy and gives it a deeper, toasted colour and flavour.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth once fried brown.
Grated carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the gravy.

The step that matters

Cook gently for 1.5 hours. Liver turns grainy and tough when boiled hard or overcooked, so a low, gentle simmer keeps it tender while the flavours blend and the gravy thickens.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pork, carrot, sage, pepper, flour. 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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