Skip to main content
Main

Calf's Liver Marine

A marinated calf's liver cured with salt, pepper, onions, salt pork, vinegar, oil, and optional claret, then slow-cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Liver and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,606 recipes. Both carry 1-nonanal, which smells fatty, waxy. The science ↓

Calf's Liver Marine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Lard the liver.

  2. Season the liver with salt and pepper.

  3. Roll and tie the liver securely.

  4. Place the sliced onions in the bottom of an earthen crock.

  5. Add the slices of salt pork on top of the onions.

  6. Lay the liver on top of the pork.

  7. Season the liver with more salt and pepper.

  8. Drizzle with vinegar.

  9. Drizzle with salad oil.

  10. Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the liver over a slow fire for 3.5 hours.

  2. Add the claret at the halfway point for extra flavor.

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. Liver + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

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

  2. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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 rich during slow cooking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the liver as it cooks.
Onions
Provide sweetness and aromatic moisture as they soften beneath the liver.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps tenderize the marinated liver.
Salad oil
Adds fat that carries flavor and keeps the surface from drying out.

The step that matters

Cook the liver over a slow fire for 3.5 hours. Liver is lean and protein-dense, so gentle, prolonged heat lets connective tissue soften and keeps the meat from toughening. High heat would seize the proteins, making it dry and tough.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pepper, pork, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, pork, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes