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Stewed Calf's Liver

A sautéed calf's liver dish simmered in stock with onion, flour, and seasonings, finished with sherry and optional mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Stewed Calf's Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Cut the liver into dice and soak in cold water for 10 minutes.

  2. Dry the liver pieces with cloths, season with salt and pepper, and dredge with flour.

Cook the liver and onion

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan and fry the sliced onion until golden, then remove the onion.

  2. Fry the liver in the butter until light brown.

  3. Add the stock, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the liver and keep warm on a platter.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with browned flour, then season with salt, parsley, ketchup, and lemon juice.

  2. Bring to a boil, add sherry, and pour over the liver.

  3. Add champignons if desired.

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

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender with gentle simmering.
Flour
Coats the liver and, once browned, thickens the gravy.
Butter
Fat for frying that adds richness and browns the liver and onion.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the finished gravy.
Stock
Liquid that simmers the liver and forms the base of the gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the floured liver. Liver overcooks quickly and turns tough and grainy. Frying only until light brown, then simmering gently, keeps it tender and prevents the flour coating from scorching.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, butter, onion, pepper, flour, parsley, ketchup):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, butter, onion, pepper, flour, parsley, ketchup. 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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