Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,053 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Directions
Make the liver filling
Cut the bacon into small pieces.
Fry the bacon for 5 minutes.
Add the liver, carrot, onion, parsley, bay leaf, thyme, shallot, garlic, peppercorns, and mace.
Cook until the liver is fully cooked.
Transfer the mixture to a mortar and pound well.
Season to taste.
Strain the mixture through a wire sieve to make foie gras.
Assemble and cook
Trim the cutlets neatly.
Cook the cutlets.
Press the cutlets between two dishes until cold.
Spread the foie gras on one side of each cutlet.
Cover each cutlet with a piece of caul.
Heat in the oven until hot.
Brush with glaze.
Serve arranged in a circle on a bed of spinach or mashed potatoes, with a little half-glaze around some macedoine in the center.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together8,053 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together9,057 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together29,030 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together4,563 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Parsley + shallottop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together3,718 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Calf's liver
- Forms the smooth, rich base of the foie gras filling.
- Fat bacon
- Adds fat and savoury flavour to the liver filling as it fries.
- Mutton cutlets
- Provide the meaty structure that the filling is spread on and wrapped around.
- Pig's caul
- Wraps each cutlet, holding the filling in place and keeping it moist while heating.
The step that matters
Strain the liver mixture through a wire sieve. Pounding leaves fibres and lumps in the liver; straining makes the filling smooth and spreadable, so it coats the cutlet evenly rather than tearing or sitting in clumps.
Flavor stand-ins for the shallot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, liver, carrot, onion, parsley, thyme, garlic):
- Potatobetter flavor fit
- Tomatobetter flavor fit
- Leekabout as good a flavor fit
- Shallotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, liver, carrot, onion, parsley, thyme, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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