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Liver Soup

A savory soup made with ham, liver, onion, and seasonings, thickened with brown roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Liver Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the ham or ham-bone with the sliced onion in 2 quarts of water until reduced by half.

  2. Chop the left-over liver and a little ham finely, then add to the stock.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt, pepper, and minced parsley.

  4. Thicken the soup with brown roux.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup over a handful of croutons in a tureen.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + livertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Ham + livertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Corned ham or ham-bone
Gives the stock its salty, savoury body as it simmers with the onion.
Brown roux
Thickens the soup, giving it a fuller body and smoother mouthfeel.
Left-over liver
Adds a rich, concentrated meaty flavour and body to the soup.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, liver, pepper, parsley. 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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