Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Liver Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the liver
Wash the liver of a fowl thoroughly and boil it in a little water for 4 minutes.
Bruise the liver and rub it through a sieve, adding some of the boiling water.
Make the sauce
Dust the butter with flour and melt it in a pan, shaking it gently.
Once hot, add the liver mixture, along with pepper, salt, grated lemon peel, and nutmeg.
Heat thoroughly and pour it around the fowl before serving.
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.
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 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
- Butter
- Melts with flour to form a roux that thickens the sauce and adds richness.
- Flour
- Combines with melted butter to thicken the sauce into a smooth body.
- Liver of a fowl
- Rubbed smooth to form the main body and flavour of the sauce.
The step that matters
Adding the liver mixture to the hot butter and flour. Flour should be cooked briefly in the melted butter before the liquid goes in; if the butter is not hot enough or the mixture is not stirred, lumps can form and the sauce may taste raw and floury.
“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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