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Sauce

Liver Sauce for Fish

A sauce made by pounding fish liver with butter and salt, then boiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Liver Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove all the fibers and black parts from the fish liver.

  2. Pound the liver in a mortar until smooth.

  3. Boil the pounded liver with melted butter and salt.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Liver + fishtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together79 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver of fish
Forms the main body of the sauce, giving it its rich flavor and smooth texture.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the sauce feel smooth and silky on the palate.

The step that matters

Boil the pounded liver with melted butter and salt. Once the liver is pounded smooth, boiling it with butter needs attention so the sauce stays smooth and does not separate or scorch. Keep the heat controlled and stir so the fat stays emulsified with the liver.

“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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