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Sauce

Liver Sauce for Fish

A sauce made by boiling fish liver, pounding with flour, and simmering with broth, butter, parsley, cayenne, anchovy essence, and citrus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,491 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Liver Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the liver of the fish.

  2. Pound the liver in a mortar with a little flour.

  3. Stir the pounded liver into broth or the liquor the fish was boiled in, or melted butter.

  4. Add parsley and a few grains of cayenne pepper.

  5. Add a little essence of anchovy and bring to a boil.

  6. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  7. Optionally, add lime juice or diced lemon.

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 + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together547 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver of fish
Gives the sauce its body and rich, savoury flavour once pounded smooth.
Flour
Thickens the pounded liver so the sauce holds together and coats food.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a smooth, glossy texture and mellow richness.
Essence of anchovy
Adds a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the fish flavour.
Lime juice or lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich liver and balances its fattiness.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve. Pounded liver and flour can stay grainy or lumpy. Pressing the mixture through a sieve breaks up remaining fibres and lumps, giving a smooth, even sauce.

Swap the lime

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limethe original
  3. Plumfits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, fish, flour, butter, parsley, pepper, anchovy. 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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