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Calf's Liver Larked and Roasted

A marinated calf liver roasted and glazed, served with poivrade sauce.

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 ↓

Calf's Liver Larked and Roasted

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. Lard the calf's liver as you would for a fricandeau.

  2. Marinate the liver in vinegar with onion, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, salt, and pepper for 24 hours.

Roast and serve

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Roast the liver, basting it well with butter.

  3. Glaze the liver with a light glaze before serving.

  4. Serve with poivrade sauce or any other sauce of your choice.

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

Calf's liver
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently to stay tender and moist.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade gently tenderises the liver and sharpens its flavour.
Butter
Fat for basting adds richness and helps the surface brown as it roasts.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the marinade, softening the liver's strong taste.

The step that matters

Marinating for 24 hours. Vinegar acts on the liver's surface and proteins over a long soak, tenderising it and mellowing its strong flavour. Too short a soak leaves the liver firmer and more pronounced in taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, vinegar, parsley, thyme, pepper, butter, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, vinegar, parsley, thyme, pepper, butter, sauce. 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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