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Braised Liver

A braised dish of sheep's liver cooked with bacon, vegetables, and stock, finished with a thickened sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 ↓

Braised Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bacon into strips 1 inch long and ⅛ inch wide.

  2. Use a larding needle to lard the liver with the bacon strips in regular rows.

  3. Wash and scrape the carrot. Cut the carrot in half.

  4. Wash and peel the onion or button onions.

Brown and make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the larded liver to the stewpan. Fry the liver until browned, being careful not to burn it.

  3. Remove the liver and set it on a plate.

  4. Stir the flour into the butter in the stewpan. Pour in the stock or water, stirring until it boils and thickens.

Braise and serve

  1. Add the vegetables and liver to the stewpan. Season with salt and pepper. Add the bouquet garni.

  2. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  3. Remove the liver and place it on a hot dish. Strain the sauce over the liver.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's liver
Is the main meat, cooked slowly so it becomes tender in the braising liquid.
Fat bacon
Larded through the liver, it adds fat and savoury flavour as it melts during cooking.
Butter
Browns the liver and carries the flavour into the flour-thickened sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks in the butter.
Stock or water
Forms the braising liquid that cooks the liver and becomes the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the liver until browned, being careful not to burn it. Browning builds colour and roasted flavour through the Maillard reaction, but high heat or long contact can scorch the butter and surface, leaving bitter taste before the slow braise begins.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, carrot, thyme, parsley, flour, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, carrot, thyme, parsley, flour, pepper, 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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