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Liver Balls

A dish of liver, bread, onion, flour, eggs, and spices boiled and then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Liver Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped liver, crumbled bread, and chopped onion.

  2. Add the flour and beaten eggs, then mix thoroughly with a spoon.

  3. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste.

Cook and finish

  1. Drop tablespoonfuls of the mixture into salted boiling water.

  2. Boil for 10 to 15 minutes, then remove from the water and fry until golden.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Calves liver
Forms the main body of the balls and gives them their rich, meaty flavor.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the balls hold their shape during boiling.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the mixture firm up enough to hold together.
Bread
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the liver mixture from becoming dense.

The step that matters

Boiling the balls. Dropping the mixture into water that is not boiling, or boiling too vigorously, can break the balls apart. The egg and flour need to set gently in simmering-level heat so the balls keep their shape.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, bread, flour, egg, pepper, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, bread, flour, egg, pepper, nutmeg. 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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