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Liver Smothered in Onions

A liver dish smothered in a sauce of onions, parsley, capers, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and capers 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 ↓

Liver Smothered in Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt lard in a frying pan until it is an inch deep and hot.

  2. Brown the butter and flour together until golden.

  3. Slowly stir in boiling water until smooth. Boil for 3 minutes.

  4. Add salt, pepper, and capers or pickles to the sauce.

  5. Keep the sauce warm without cooking.

Cook the liver

  1. Cook the parsley and onion in the hot lard for 2 minutes.

  2. Add the liver slices to the pan, turning constantly until slightly browned and firm to the touch.

  3. Transfer the cooked liver to the sauce, ensuring it is well coated.

Serve

  1. Arrange the liver pieces in a circle on a plate and pour the sauce over them.

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. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 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

Liver
Provides the main protein; turning it constantly until just firm keeps it tender rather than tough.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when browned with butter and then combined with boiling water.
Butter
Adds browned, nutty flavour to the sauce base along with the flour.
Lard
Fat for frying the parsley, onion and liver, adding richness and browning.
Onion
Softens in hot lard, adding sweetness and savoury aroma to the dish.
Capers or pickles
Adds acidity and sharp contrast that cuts through the rich liver and sauce.

The step that matters

Turning the liver constantly in the hot lard. Liver is lean and cooks quickly; overcooking makes its proteins contract and turn dry and tough. Cooking just until slightly browned and firm keeps it tender, so the liver should be removed promptly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, butter, flour, parsley, vinegar, pepper, capers. 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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