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Liver Hash

A savory hash of liver and bacon in a butter‑flour‑milk sauce, served on toast with optional poached egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Liver Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Run the leftover liver and bacon through a meat chopper or chop finely by hand.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, then stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  2. Slowly add the milk while stirring continuously until the sauce thickens.

  3. Season the sauce with salt, pepper, thyme, sage, and bay leaf if using.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the chopped liver and bacon to the sauce and mix well.

  2. Serve the hash on slices of toast, topped with a poached egg if desired.

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. Thyme + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Liver + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover liver
Provides the main meaty body and rich flavor of the hash.
Leftover bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that flavors the sauce and the chopped meat.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds rich flavor to the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that binds the chopped meat.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a creamy texture as it thickens.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour must cook briefly in the melted butter before the milk is added, which removes its raw taste. Adding milk slowly while stirring keeps the sauce smooth rather than lumpy, and it thickens as the starch swells with heat.

Swap the thyme

The recipe marks thyme as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, butter, flour, milk, pepper, sage, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, butter, flour, milk, pepper, sage, egg. 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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