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Baked Calf's Liver, with Stuffing

A baked calf liver stuffed with bread crumbs, butter, onion, herbs, and pork fat, served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Calf's Liver, with Stuffing

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 the stuffing

  1. Wash the liver well in cold, salted water.

  2. Make a small incision in the thickest part of the liver and enlarge the cavity inside.

  3. Chop the onion finely.

  4. Pour scalding water over it for 30 seconds. Drain.

  5. Rub the butter into the bread crumbs. Let sit for at least 30 minutes.

  6. Add the onion, salt, pepper, and herbs to the bread crumbs. Mix well.

Stuff and roast

  1. Fill the liver with the stuffing.

  2. Season with salt and pepper. Dust with flour.

  3. Place the liver in a roasting pan with a little water. Lay strips of fat pork over it.

  4. Roast at 350°F (175°C) for one hour. Baste every 20 minutes with a mixture of water and butter.

Serve

  1. Place the liver on a hot platter.

  2. Thicken the gravy in the pan to serve.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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 and is cooked through as the centerpiece.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and seasonings to form a moist stuffing that fills the liver cavity.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the bread crumb stuffing and the basting mixture.
Fat pork
Lies over the liver during roasting, adding moisture and flavor as it renders.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Scalding the onion and the stuffing rest. Brief scalding softens the raw bite of the onion so it blends smoothly into the stuffing. Letting the buttered crumbs sit for at least 30 minutes lets the fat coat the crumbs evenly, so they hold moisture rather than turning dry or gritty during roasting.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, bread, butter, pepper, onion, celery, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagethe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, bread, butter, pepper, onion, celery, parsley. 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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