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Ragooed Livers

A dish of chicken livers cooked with mushrooms, herbs, and a ragù-like sauce, finished with egg yolks and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ragooed Livers

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the livers, mushrooms, herbs, garlic (or onion), and butter rolled in flour.

  2. Add the white wine and enough warm water to keep the mixture moist.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then stew the mixture together and skim off any foam.

  4. Before serving, stir in the beaten egg yolks and cream.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken livers
Provide the main meaty body and rich flavour of the dish.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour as they release juices while stewing.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce into a smooth, creamy texture when stirred in at the end.
Butter
Adds richness, and the flour coating helps thicken the cooking liquid.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble if the mixture is boiling. Stir them in off the heat or at low heat, just before serving, so the sauce becomes smooth and creamy rather than grainy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, mushroom, parsley, thyme, basil, butter, flour):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, parsley, thyme, basil, 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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