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Calf's Liver

A stew of calf liver with herbs, spices, vegetables, and bread, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Calf's Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the liver

  1. Lard the liver and place it in a stewpan with salt, whole pepper, sweet herbs, onion, and enough water to cover.

  2. Stew for 1 hour.

Add vegetables and finish

  1. Add mace, cloves, and whole pepper tied in a muslin rag, along with chopped celery, salt, turnips, carrots, parsley, and a crust of bread.

  2. Cover and stew until tender.

  3. Remove the herbs, spices, and bread.

  4. In a dish, place the toasted French roll quarters, pour in the meat and sauce, and serve hot.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Forms the main body of the stew, becoming tender as it simmers slowly.
Lard
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the stew a smooth mouthfeel.
Onion
Builds aromatic sweetness into the stewing liquid as it softens.
Turnips
Contribute body and mild sweetness to the stew as they cook through.
Carrots
Add sweetness and soft texture to the stew as they cook until tender.
Barley or rice
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during long simmering.

The step that matters

Stew until tender. Liver turns tough and grainy if overcooked, while undercooking leaves the connective tissue firm. Gentle, covered simmering keeps the meat moist and tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pepper, onion, clove, celery, turnip, carrot):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, onion, clove, celery, turnip, carrot. 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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