Skip to main content
Main

Calf's Liver a LA Bourgeoise

A sautéed calf liver dish with shallot, parsley, green onions, butter, flour, wine, and a thickened egg yolk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Calf's Liver a LA Bourgeoise

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the liver

  1. In a stewpan, combine the sliced liver, shallot, parsley, green onions, and butter.

  2. Saute over medium heat and sprinkle in the flour.

  3. Add the water and white wine, then season with salt and pepper.

  4. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the vinegar.

  2. When the liver is cooked and the sauce is nearly reduced, stir in the egg mixture to thicken the sauce.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Is the main protein, cooked gently in the sauce until tender.
Flour
Thickens the butter and wine base so the sauce clings to the liver.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce when stirred in near the end, adding richness and body.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour and helps the shallot and herbs cook gently at the start.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce as it reduces.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg mixture at the end. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated but can scramble if the sauce is boiling hard. Stir them in off the heat or over very low heat, and keep stirring while they set.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, shallot, parsley, butter, flour, white wine, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, shallot, parsley, butter, flour, white wine, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes