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Liver Pudding

A savory pudding made from stewed liver, fat, potatoes, and a crust of dripping and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Liver Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the liver in a small quantity of water for 1½ hours.

  2. Cut the liver into small squares.

  3. Season the liver with pepper and salt.

  4. Add pieces of bacon fat, beef fat, or mutton fat to the liver.

  5. Mix the liver and fat together.

  6. Pour in the remaining gravy from the stew‑pan.

Make the crust and boil

  1. Make a crust using dripping and flour.

  2. Line a quart basin with the crust.

  3. Cover with the crust.

  4. Boil in a cloth for 2 hours.

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. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Liver + beeftop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Forms the main body of the pudding and gives its rich, savoury flavour.
Bacon fat or beef fat or mutton fat
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the liver from drying out during cooking.
Dripping
Adds fat to the crust, making it tender and short.
Flour
Forms the structure of the crust, holding its shape when boiled.
Potatoes
Listed in the record but no preparation step is given, so their role here is unclear.

The step that matters

Boil in a cloth for 2 hours. Boiling must stay steady and the cloth must be wrapped snugly so the pudding cooks through evenly and the crust holds together without the filling leaking out.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, beef, 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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