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Bullock’s Liver Fried with Potatoes

A fried liver dish cooked with potatoes and cabbage or carrots, seasoned with pepper, salt, and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bullock’s Liver Fried with Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the liver and vegetables

  1. Stew the liver in a small quantity of water for at least 3 hours.

  2. Remove the liver and stew the potatoes and cabbage (or carrots) in the same liquid, adding pepper and salt to taste.

  3. When nearly done, remove the vegetables and break them into pieces the size of a pigeon's egg.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard or dripping in a frying pan.

  2. Add the liver sliced thin and the vegetable pieces.

  3. Fry until everything is cooked through.

  4. Thicken the remaining liquid with flour.

  5. Warm the thickened liquid.

  6. Pour the liquid over the liver and vegetables before serving.

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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Potato + cabbagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cabbage + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together978 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

Bullock's liver
Forms the main body of the dish and is tenderised by long, gentle stewing in water.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk, softening as they stew and holding their shape when fried.
Cabbage or carrots
Add moisture, mild sweetness and texture alongside the liver and potatoes.
Lard or dripping
Provides fat for frying, which browns the surfaces and carries flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy that coats the liver and vegetables.

The step that matters

Stewing the liver for at least 3 hours. Liver is tough and tends to be dry or rubbery if undercooked; long, gentle simmering in liquid breaks down its connective tissue so it stays tender.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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