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Larded Liver

Larded Liver is liver larded with pork strips and fried, topped with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Liver and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,606 recipes. Both carry 1-nonanal, which smells fatty, waxy. The science ↓

Larded Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Slice the liver.

  2. Soak the sliced liver in cold water with salt for 30 minutes to draw out the blood.

  3. Remove the liver from the water.

  4. Pat the liver dry with cloths.

  5. Cut the pork into strips 1 inch long and ¼ inch thick.

  6. Make holes in the liver with a knife or skewer.

  7. Insert the pork strips into the holes, ensuring they protrude equally on both sides.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat a clean, warm frying pan.

  2. Place the liver in the pan.

  3. Fry the liver slowly in the fat that renders from the pork for about 25 minutes, turning it after 5 minutes and again after 10 minutes.

  4. Drain the liver on the side of the pan as you remove each piece.

  5. Place the liver on a hot platter.

  6. Top each slice with ½ teaspoon of tomato sauce.

  7. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Pork + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,843 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Liver + tomatotop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together146 recipes

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

  5. Pork + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked until tender and browned on the outside.
Fat raw salt pork
Adds fat that renders into the pan, moistening the liver and adding savory flavor as it cooks.

The step that matters

Frying slowly. Liver turns dry and tough when cooked over high heat. Gentle frying in rendered pork fat keeps the interior tender while the outside browns.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pork, sauce):

  1. Mustardfits about as well
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pork, sauce. 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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