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Calfs Liver, Saute

Sautéed calf's liver with wine gravy, served with optional bread slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Calfs Liver, Saute

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Cut the calf's liver into thin slices and flatten them by beating.

  2. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and flour on both sides of the liver slices.

Sauté and make the gravy

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium‑high heat.

  2. Add the liver slices to the pan.

  3. Cook until done on one side, then turn to cook the other side.

  4. Add the wine and boil for 10 minutes.

  5. Add stock to thin the gravy as required.

Serve

  1. Arrange the liver pieces around the dish.

  2. Fry slices of bread if desired and place them between the liver slices.

  3. Pour the gravy into the center of the dish and serve.

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. Shallot + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 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
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked until tender and firm on the outside.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the liver surface and carries flavor into the pan.
Flour
Dusted on the slices, it helps form a light browned crust and thickens the pan juices into gravy.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth to the pan sauce as it reduces during boiling.
Eschalots
Adds a mild, sweet aromatic onion flavor to the dish.

The step that matters

Cooking the liver through. Liver is thin and cooks quickly; overcooking toughens it and makes it dry and grainy, so it should be turned once and removed as soon as it is done.

“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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