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Stewed Liver

A stew of liver pieces wrapped in bacon, simmered with herbs, carrots, turnip, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Stewed Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the liver into pieces about 3 inches long and 2 inches thick.

  2. Mince the parsley, thyme, and onion.

  3. Cut thin slices of bacon.

  4. Dip the liver in flour, pepper, and salt.

  5. Lay the liver on slices of bacon, sprinkle with herbs, and roll it up in the bacon.

  6. Tie the rolls and dip them again in flour.

Stew

  1. Slice some carrot and turnip, and place these on the bottom of a stewpan.

  2. Place the bacon-wrapped liver rolls on top of the vegetables.

  3. Pour over enough stock to cover, season, and simmer 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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 dish, becoming tender and rich during slow simmering.
Bacon
Wraps the liver, adding fat and savory flavor that keeps the meat moist as it cooks.
Flour
Coats the liver so it browns lightly and helps thicken the cooking liquid.
Stock
Provides the cooking liquid that gently braises the rolls and carries flavor.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the stewing liquid as it softens.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 1 hour. Liver turns tough and grainy if it boils hard or cooks too long. A gentle simmer keeps the proteins tender and the rolls moist while the bacon fat bastes the meat.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, parsley, thyme, carrot, turnip, 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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