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Fried Liver

Fried liver is a dish of sliced calf liver cooked in beef dripping and served with a brown stock and tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fried Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Cut the liver into thick slices, wash, and dry them.

  2. Dust the liver slices with flour and season with salt and pepper.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat the beef dripping in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Cook the liver gently, turning constantly until done.

  3. Place the cooked liver on a hot dish with fried tomatoes.

  4. In the same pan, stir flour into the remaining dripping until smooth.

  5. Gradually add the brown stock and tomato catsup, stirring well.

  6. Let the sauce boil, season with pepper, cayenne, and salt, then strain it into the dish.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Liver + beeftop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' liver
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently to stay tender.
Flour
Dusting helps the liver brown, and it thickens the sauce when stirred into the dripping.
Beef dripping
Fat for frying that gives the liver browning and rich flavour.
Brown stock
Liquid that turns the flour and dripping into a savoury sauce.
Tomato catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the brown sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the liver gently, turning constantly until done. Liver turns dry and grainy when overcooked, and constant turning helps it cook evenly and brown without toughening. Stop once it is just cooked through.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, flour, pepper, beef. 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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