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Stewed Calf's Liver

A dish of calf's liver stewed with corned pork, herbs, spices, and a savory gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stewed Calf's Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the heart and haslet in enough cold water to cover them with three onions.

  2. Prepare the calf's liver by making incisions and inserting strips of corned pork.

Make the gravy

  1. Melt the butter in a pan until boiling hot, then add 1 teaspoon of flour and stir until light brown.

  2. Add the liver to the pan, turning it until cooked on all sides.

  3. Add summer savory, parsley, bay leaf, salt, peppercorns, allspice, cloves, and lemon juice.

  4. Once the heart and haslet are cooked, pour the gravy over the liver and simmer covered for 1.5 hours.

  5. Strain the gravy, add mushroom catsup or wine, and 1 tablespoon of flour to thicken.

  6. Boil the gravy for 5 minutes, then pour it over the liver and serve the remainder in a sauceboat.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Summer savory + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Summer savory + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Summer savory + clovetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Is the main meat, cooked slowly so it becomes tender in the gravy.
Butter
Provides fat for browning the flour and enriching the gravy.
Flour
Browned in butter and later added to thicken the strained gravy.
Corned pork
Strips inserted into the liver add salty, savoury flavour throughout the meat.
Mushroom catsup or wine
Adds depth and acidity to the gravy's flavour.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy after straining. Flour added to hot liquid clumps unless it is first mixed smoothly with a little cool liquid or stirred in steadily. Boiling afterward cooks out the raw flour taste and sets the gravy's body.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pork, butter, flour, summer savory, allspice, clove):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pork, butter, flour, summer savory, allspice, clove. 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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