Skip to main content
Main

Beaised Liver with Geeen Steing Beans

Braised calf's liver seasoned with bacon, salt, and herbs, served with green string beans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Beaised Liver with Geeen Steing Beans

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the liver

  1. Remove the skin from the calf's liver and lard the upper part with two rows of bacon lardons. If you don't have a larding needle, make incisions and insert bits of bacon.

  2. Sprinkle the entire surface with coarse sea salt and celery salt, then dredge with flour.

Sear and braise

  1. In a hot iron frying pan, add the trimmings from the lardons. Once rendered, add the liver and cook until well seared and browned, turning frequently.

  2. Transfer the liver to a braising pan. Add the carrot, onion, parsley, bay leaf, clove, peppercorns, and brown stock or water.

  3. Cover closely and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours and 15 minutes, basting five times during baking.

Make the glaze and serve

  1. Remove the liver, strain the stock, and reduce it to a glaze. Stir in the white wine and pour over the liver.

  2. Serve the liver on a hot dish surrounded by Green String Beans.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Is the main dish, becoming tender and rich during slow braising.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour as it renders and lards the liver.
Flour
Coats the surface so the liver browns well and thickens the cooking juices.
Brown stock or water
Provides moisture for braising and becomes the base of the glaze.
White wine
Adds acidity and brightness to the reduced glaze.

The step that matters

Searing the liver. Browning the floured surface in hot fat builds deep roasted flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale searing leaves the glaze flat, and turning often keeps the coating from burning.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, celery, flour, carrot, parsley, clove, white wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, celery, flour, carrot, parsley, clove, white wine. 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

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipes