Skip to main content
Main

Beef-liver Stew

A stew of sliced beef liver cooked with lemon, spices, and a cornstarch gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef-liver Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Cut the liver into slices and wash them well in lukewarm salted water, then dry on a napkin.

  2. Heat pork drippings in a frying pan and fry the liver for about 3 minutes.

  3. Transfer the liver to a small stew pan and add enough water to cover it.

Stew and serve

  1. Add the lemon slices, spices, and sufficient salt and pepper.

  2. Cover the pan and stew slowly for 30 minutes.

  3. Stir in a little cornstarch mixed with water into the gravy. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

  4. Serve on a small platter.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef liver
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and firm as it cooks.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth gravy when heated with water.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich liver and gravy.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aromatic sweetness that complements the liver.

The step that matters

Stew slowly for 30 minutes. Gentle, covered simmering keeps the liver tender; high heat or overcooking toughens its proteins and makes it grainy and dry.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, liver, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, pepper, pork):

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Orangefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, liver, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, pepper, pork. 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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipes