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Brown Stew of Liver

A stew of sliced liver cooked slowly with onion, browned flour roux, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Brown Stew of Liver

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Soak the sliced liver in cold water with salt for 30 minutes.

  2. Wipe the liver and cut it into 1-inch square pieces.

Make the gravy

  1. Fry the sliced onion in dripping until browned, then strain it out.

  2. Add browned flour to the fat and stir to make a smooth roux.

  3. Gradually add 1 cup of boiling water to the roux, stirring continuously.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a saucepan, add the liver and another cup of hot water.

Finish and serve

  1. Cover and stew slowly for 1 hour or until the liver is tender.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, parsley, and tomato ketchup, then serve in a deep dish.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  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

Liver
Forms the main body of the stew and becomes tender during slow simmering.
Browned flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth gravy when mixed with the fat and water.
Dripping
Carries flavour and browns the onion, adding richness to the gravy.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it browns in the dripping.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to round out the gravy's flavour.

The step that matters

Gradually add the boiling water to the roux. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the flour starch disperse evenly before it thickens, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth gravy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, onion, flour, pepper, parsley, ketchup. 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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