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Baked Liver

A loaf of calf liver mixed with salt pork, onions, butter, and seasonings, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Baked Liver

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil the calf's liver for 1.5 hours or until cooked.

  2. Chop the liver finely with the salt pork and onions.

  3. Season the mixture with butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

Shape and bake

  1. Form the mixture into a loaf and place thin strips of salt pork on top.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour.

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. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 bulk of the loaf and gives it its rich, meaty flavor.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor, helping keep the loaf moist.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they blend into the chopped mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the chopped mixture.

The step that matters

Baking the loaf. Liver is lean, and its proteins tighten and turn dry and grainy when overcooked. Since the liver is already cooked, the oven time mainly sets the loaf and browns the top, so it should not be baked longer than the recipe states.

Swap the onion

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

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

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