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Fried Liver and Onions

Fried liver and onions is a savory dish of sliced liver fried with onions and a brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fried Liver and Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dry the liver and cut it into slices about ⅓ inch thick.

  2. Mix the flour with a little salt and pepper on a plate.

  3. Dip each piece of liver into the flour mixture, shaking off any excess flour.

Fry

  1. Heat the dripping in a frying pan and fry the liver for about 15 minutes, turning occasionally until well cooked.

  2. Arrange the liver in the middle of a dish to keep it hot.

  3. Peel and slice the onion.

  4. Fry the onion until brown with or after the liver.

  5. Place the fried onion on top of the liver.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add the remaining flour to the frying pan.

  2. Stir until the flour turns brown.

  3. Add the water or bone stock.

  4. Stir until the mixture boils.

  5. Pour the sauce around the liver.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 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
Its protein sets when fried, giving the dish its main body and bite.
Flour
Coats the liver to help it brown and thickens the pan sauce when browned and mixed with liquid.
Onion
Browns in the fat, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the dish.
Dripping
Fat for frying that browns the liver and onion and carries flavour.
Water or bone stock
Liquid that turns the browned flour into a thickened, savoury sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the liver until well cooked. Liver turns tough and dry if overcooked, yet undercooked liver is unsafe, so the slices need steady turning over moderate heat and a check that they are cooked through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, flour, 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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