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Chicken Livers

A sautéed chicken liver dish with Madeira, olives, and toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,888 recipes. Both carry acetic acid hexyl ester, which smells sweet, green. The science ↓

Chicken Livers

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a chafing dish or saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chicken livers and cook until browned on all sides.

  3. Dredge the livers with flour and cook for an additional five minutes.

  4. Pour in the stock and season with salt and pepper.

  5. Add the Madeira or sherry and olives.

  6. Serve the mixture on toast.

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. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

  2. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Chicken + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together891 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken livers
Main protein; browning gives them savoury flavour while the inside stays tender.
Flour
Dredged onto the livers, it helps thicken the stock into a light sauce.
Butter
Fat for browning the livers and adds rich flavour to the sauce.
Madeira or sherry
Adds acidity and fortified sweetness that deepens the sauce's flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the livers on all sides. Searing creates browned flavour through the Maillard reaction. Crowding the pan or stirring too little makes the livers steam and turn grey instead of browning, and overcooking makes them dry and grainy.

“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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