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Goose Liver Fdt6

A preserved goose liver spread made with butter, calf's tongue, seasoning, mustard, stock, and clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Goose Liver Fdt6

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the livers and tongue

  1. Soak the goose livers in milk for a while, being careful not to break the gall bladders.

  2. In a pan, melt butter and gently cook the livers until nearly done, without browning them.

  3. Boil the calf's tongue separately until cooked. Skin the calf's tongue and cut it into square and triangular shapes.

  4. Let the livers cool.

Make the pâté

  1. Pound the livers in a mortar with butter.

  2. Add seasoning gradually.

  3. Mix in mustard and boiling stock.

  4. Pack the mixture tightly into buttered jars.

Bake and store

  1. Cover the jars.

  2. Place in a cool oven for about 30 minutes.

  3. Cool completely.

  4. Top with clarified butter.

  5. Store in a cool place.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Goose livers
Provide the main body and rich flavour of the pâté when pounded smooth.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable texture to the pounded livers.
Calf's tongue
Adds firmer pieces of meat that give the pâté contrast in texture.
Boiling stock
Adds moisture so the mixture becomes softer and easier to spread.

The step that matters

Gently cooking the livers without browning. Cooking livers slowly over gentle heat keeps them tender and mild. Browning or overcooking toughens the proteins and makes the pâté grainy and bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, butter, pepper, nutmeg, clove, mustard):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, butter, pepper, nutmeg, clove, mustard. 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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