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Calf's Liver a LA Jardiniere

A braised calf liver cooked with vegetables and a tomato-based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Calf's Liver a LA Jardiniere

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Lard the liver with strips of fat salt pork.

  2. Cover the bottom of a large saucepan with diced carrot, turnip, small onions, green peas, and string beans.

  3. Place the liver on top, season with pepper, and pour in stock or hot water with melted butter.

Cook

  1. Cover tightly and cook for 1.5 hours without opening.

  2. In a separate pan, cook the peeled tomatoes.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the liver and vegetables with a slotted spoon and keep warm in the oven.

  2. Strain the gravy into a saucepan, add catsup and browned flour mixed with cold water, and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Serve a few spoonfuls of gravy over the liver and vegetables, and the rest in a sauce boat.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Peas + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together949 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 protein, cooked gently in covered steam to stay tender.
Salt pork fat
Larding adds fat and moisture to the lean liver as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the cooking liquid and gravy.
Browned flour
Thickens the strained gravy and adds a toasted, deeper flavour.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and fresh flavour to the dish.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the covered pan.

The step that matters

Cook tightly covered without opening the pan. Lifting the lid lets steam escape and the temperature drop, so the liver and vegetables cook unevenly and the braising liquid loses its concentration over the long cook.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pork, carrot, turnip, onion, beans, butter):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pork, carrot, turnip, onion, beans, butter. 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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