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Liver Pie

A savory pie made with sliced liver, onions, herbs, bacon, and stock, baked under pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Liver Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Soak stale crusts in milk or water, then wring them dry.

  2. Mix the chopped onion, parsley, thyme, and minced bacon together.

  3. Cut the liver into slices and dredge with flour, salt, and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the liver and the bread mixture alternately in a baking dish, finishing with a layer of liver.

  2. Pour the stock over the layers, cover with pastry, and brush with milk.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 pie and gives it its rich, savory flavor.
Stale crusts
Soak up liquid and help bind the layers into a soft, moist filling.
Bacon fat
Adds fat and savory flavor that keeps the filling moist during baking.
Stock
Provides moisture that cooks the layers and keeps the filling from drying out.
Flour
Lightly coats the liver and helps thicken the juices in the dish.

The step that matters

Dredge the liver evenly. Flour coating helps thicken the juices around the liver. Uneven coating leaves dry patches or lumps, so the sauce sets unevenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, parsley, thyme, flour, pepper, milk. 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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