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Herbs to Fry for Eating with Liver, or with Rashers and Eggs

Sautéed young spinach, lettuce, parsley, and onions in butter, seasoned with pepper and salt, served with liver, rashers, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 427 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Herbs to Fry for Eating with Liver, or with Rashers and Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and drain the spinach and lettuce leaves.

  2. Chop the parsley and young onions.

Cook the herbs

  1. In a stew-pan, combine all the herbs with butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Cover and heat until steaming, then reduce to a simmer until the herbs are tender.

Serve

  1. Serve the herbs with liver or rashers and eggs on top.

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. Spinach + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Spinach + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Spinach
Wilts down as it cooks, releasing moisture that keeps the greens soft and tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries flavour across the greens.
Young onions
Softens as it cooks, adding a mild, savoury aroma.

The step that matters

Covering and simmering the herbs. Covering traps steam so the greens wilt evenly. Simmering gently keeps them tender; overheating can turn them mushy and dull in colour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, lettuce, parsley, butter, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, lettuce, parsley, butter, pepper. 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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