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Sheep's Liver

A dish of sliced sheep's liver fried with butter, parsley, and onion, served in a gravy or hot water sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sheep's Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the liver into slices and wash it well.

  2. Dry the liver with a cloth, then flour and season it with pepper and salt.

Cook

  1. Fry the liver in butter with minced parsley and chopped onion.

  2. Add gravy or hot water to create a sauce and let it stew for a few minutes.

  3. Wash the sliced liver in a milk and water mixture before frying for a plain version.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's liver
The main ingredient; it browns on the outside and firms as it fries.
Flour
Coats the slices, helping them brown and thickening the pan juices into a sauce.
Butter
Frying fat that promotes browning and adds rich flavour.
Onion
Turns sweet and aromatic as it cooks in the butter.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma that balances the rich liver.
Gravy or hot water
Provides moisture to form a sauce and gently stew the liver.

The step that matters

Frying the liver. Liver is lean and delicate, so overcooking makes it tough, dry and grainy. Fry it briefly over moderate heat until just cooked through, then add the liquid so it stays tender.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, flour, pepper, butter, parsley, 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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