Skip to main content
Main

Calfs Liver Smothered in Onions

A calf's liver cooked slowly in onions, seasoned with salt, pepper, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Calfs Liver Smothered in Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Soak the liver in salt water for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the thin outer skin and wipe the liver dry.

Smother

  1. Heat goose fat in a stew pan.

  2. Add the chopped onion and sauté until light yellow.

  3. Sprinkle the liver with fine salt, pepper, and dredge with flour.

  4. Place the liver in the pan with the sautéed onion.

  5. Add the bay leaf, whole cloves, and peppercorns.

  6. Cover tightly and stew, turning the liver occasionally.

  7. Add a little hot water if needed.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Is the main protein, cooked slowly until tender in the covered pan.
Flour
Dredged on the liver to help form a light coating that browns and thickens the juices.
Onion
Sautéed first to add sweetness and savory depth to the braising liquid.
Goose fat
Fat for frying that browns the liver and onion and carries flavor.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and stew, turning the liver occasionally. Gentle, covered cooking with occasional turning keeps the liver moist and tender. Too much heat or too long a cook can toughen it and make it dry and grainy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes