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Chicken Livers

Sautéed chicken livers in a buttery sauce served on toast with rice and garnished with parsley and hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and chicken match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Livers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Fry the chopped onion in butter over medium heat until nearly done, being careful not to scorch it.

  2. Add the salt pork and cook until it is half done.

Cook the livers

  1. Add the chicken livers, cover the pan, and cook slowly until well done and browned.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then remove the livers and arrange them on buttered toast.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Sprinkle flour into the pan drippings and let it cook until saturated but not scorched.

  2. Pour in boiling water and season with salt and pepper, letting it boil until thickened.

  3. Strain the sauce over the livers and serve with a border of rice and parsley.

  4. Optionally, garnish with hard-boiled eggs cut into quarters.

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. Pork + chickentop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Pork + livertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  5. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 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

Chicken livers
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and browned when cooked slowly covered.
Butter
Carries the onion and livers in the pan and adds richness and browning.
Salt pork
Adds savory fat and salty flavor to the pan drippings.
Flour
Thickens the pan drippings and boiling water into a smooth sauce.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in butter.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour in the drippings. Flour must cook long enough to lose its raw starchy taste, but not scorch, which would make the sauce bitter and dark. Boiling the liquid afterward fully thickens the starch so the sauce sets smooth rather than pasty.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pork, chicken, liver, pepper, flour, rice):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pork, chicken, liver, pepper, flour, rice. 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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