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Stuffed Calfs Liver

A liver stuffed with breadcrumbs, ham, mushrooms, capers, parsley, onion juice, and egg, then braised in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stuffed Calfs Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Wash the liver. Soak it in cold water for 30 minutes. Wipe dry.

  2. Make a slit in one side of the liver, leaving an inch uncut on the opposite side. Use a knife to create a pocket inside the liver for the stuffing.

Stuff and wrap

  1. In a bowl, mix breadcrumbs, chopped ham or pork, chopped mushrooms, capers, pepper, salt, parsley, and onion juice. Bind with the raw egg.

  2. Stuff the liver with the mixture and sew up the opening.

  3. Wrap the liver in cheesecloth or mosquito netting, fitting it closely.

Cook and set

  1. Place the wrapped liver in a saucepan on a bed of chopped carrot, onion, and tomato.

  2. Cover with hot water or stock and cook in a covered pot for 1.5 hours.

  3. Let the liver cool in the cooking liquid, then place it between two plates with a weight on top to firm up.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, remove the cloth and slice the liver horizontally into thin slices.

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. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Capers + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 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, becoming tender and sliceable after gentle simmering.
Raw egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together inside the liver during cooking.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body so it stays soft rather than dense.
Ham or pork
Adds savory richness and fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavor to the cooking liquid and the stuffing.

The step that matters

Cook and set the liver in a covered pot. Gentle, covered simmering in liquid keeps the liver moist and tender; the raw egg in the stuffing needs to cook through so the filling sets firmly, and the weighted cooling helps the slices hold their shape.

Swap the onion

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

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

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