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Farce of Fat Livers for Gratins

A farce made from fat livers or leg of veal, bread panada, eggs, and flour, baked into small pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Farce of Fat Livers for Gratins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Prepare fat livers or leg of veal as directed for game pies.

Bind and test

  1. Add one-third the quantity of well-made bread panada and an equal amount of raw eggs to bind the mixture.

  2. Roll a small quantity in flour and bake on a small baking sheet at 400 °F (200 °C) for 5 minutes.

  3. Check if it holds its shape and is firm; if it shrinks, add more panada and another egg.

  4. Use the farce when it passes the test.

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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Bread + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Liver + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together731 recipes

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

  5. Liver + meattop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together332 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fat livers or leg of veal
Forms the main body of the farce, giving it its meaty texture and flavour.
Bread panada
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the farce tender rather than dense.
Raw eggs
Bind the mixture and set when cooked, holding the farce together.

The step that matters

Testing the farce before use. If the mixture is too loose it will shrink or crumble when cooked. The test bake shows whether the binding is right, so adding more panada and egg before using the farce helps it hold its shape.

“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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