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Larded Liver

A calf's liver cooked with bacon, onion, and marjoram, simmered in water and served with its gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Larded Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Lard the calf's liver with bacon or ham.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Tie a cord around the liver to keep its shape.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the liver in a kettle with 1 quart of cold water, chopped bacon, onion, and sweet marjoram.

  2. Simmer slowly for 2 hours.

  3. Pour off the gravy into a gravy dish.

  4. Brown the liver in the kettle.

  5. Serve with the gravy.

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. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Onion + marjoramtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Liver + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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, cooking into a firm, tender slice.
Bacon or ham
Adds fat and savory flavor that moistens the lean liver as it cooks.
Chopped bacon
Renders fat into the cooking liquid, enriching the gravy with savory flavor.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aroma into the cooking liquid, building the gravy's flavor.
Sweet marjoram
Contributes a mild, floral herb aroma to the simmering liquid and gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 2 hours. Gentle, low heat keeps the liver tender and prevents toughening; boiling hard can make proteins contract and dry the meat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, ham, pepper, marjoram. 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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