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Steamed Liver

A dish of liver steamed with bacon or suet, flour, onions, bay leaves, vinegar, sugar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Steamed Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the liver in water or sour milk for 1 hour, changing the water several times to remove toxic blood.

  2. Remove the skin from the liver and tie bacon or suet over it.

  3. Roll the liver in flour.

Steam

  1. Steam in fat for 20 minutes.

  2. Add enough boiling water to half cover the liver.

  3. Flavor with bay leaves, coarse sea salt, black pepper, plenty of onions, vinegar, and sugar.

  4. Cover the saucepan and steam for about 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with potatoes or apple and lettuce salad.

  2. Strain the gravy to use the next day.

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

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

  2. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh liver
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and firm when gently steamed.
Bacon or suet
Adds fat that keeps the liver moist and carries flavor during steaming.
Flour
Coats the liver, helping it brown lightly and thickening the gravy.
Onions
Become sweet and aromatic as they cook, flavoring the gravy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavor of the liver.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and onions.

The step that matters

Steam gently with the lid on for about 1 hour. Liver is lean and protein-rich, so prolonged high heat or drying out makes it tough and grainy. Keeping the pan covered with liquid at half depth traps steam and keeps the meat moist while it cooks through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, flour, pepper, vinegar, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, flour, pepper, vinegar, sugar. 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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