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Liver Soup

A soup made with minced chicken livers, vegetables, macaroni, butter, pepper, spices, and grated Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Liver Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the chicken livers and vegetables.

  2. Warm them in a saucepan with butter.

Assemble and cook

  1. Blanch the macaroni, drain it, and season with pepper and spices.

  2. In a heatproof dish, layer macaroni, minced liver and vegetables, and grated Parmesan cheese.

  3. Repeat the layers until the dish is full.

  4. Place the dish over gentle heat and let it simmer for a reasonable time.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsnip + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken livers
Provide the main body and rich, savoury flavour of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the livers and vegetables soften and carry flavour.
Macaroni
Adds starchy bulk and body, giving the dish a substantial texture.
Grated parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savoury flavour and helps bind the layers together.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, liver, celery, carrot, parsnip, turnip, leek):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, liver, celery, carrot, parsnip, turnip, leek. 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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