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Braised Calf's Liver

A braised dish of calf's liver cooked with vegetables, salt pork, stock, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Braised Calf's Liver

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. Lard the liver in three rows and place strips of salt pork on top of the liver.

  2. In a baking pan, combine carrot, turnip, onion, and salt pork.

  3. Place the liver on top of the vegetables.

Braise

  1. Add stock or hot water, salt, peppercorns, and parsley.

  2. Cover with another pan.

  3. Cook at 350°F (175°C) for 2.5 hours, basting often.

  4. Add more stock or water if necessary.

Make the gravy

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in flour until brown.

  3. Gradually stir in 1 cup of strained stock from the pan.

  4. Season with additional salt and pepper if needed.

  5. Pour the gravy around the liver.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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 firm as it braises slowly in liquid.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that keeps the lean liver moist during long cooking.
Butter
Provides fat for the gravy and carries flavor when cooked with flour.
Flour
Thickens the gravy by binding with the melted butter and stock.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aroma into the braising liquid as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stir in flour until brown. Cooking flour in butter until browned develops nutty flavor and color, and it must be stirred constantly so it does not scorch. Undercooked flour leaves a raw, pasty taste in the gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pork, carrot, turnip, parsley, butter, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pork, carrot, turnip, parsley, butter, 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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