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Lemon and Liver Sauce

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Lemon and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lemon and Liver Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Peel the Lemon or Seville Orange, removing the white pith.

  2. Slice the fruit into thin rounds and remove the seeds.

  3. Cut the slices into small squares and mince a bit of the peel finely.

  4. Combine the fruit and peel with the prepared Liver in melted Butter.

  5. Warm the mixture gently without boiling.

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. Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Butter + tarragontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,572 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lemon + livertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together768 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Swap the tarragon

The recipe marks tarragon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, liver, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Tarragonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, liver, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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