Skip to main content
Main

Sheep's Liver

Fried slices of sheep's liver seasoned with flour, salt, pepper, and served in a butter and parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Sheep's Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the sheep's liver into slices.

  2. Wash the slices in a mixture of milk and water.

  3. Dry the liver with a cloth.

  4. Season the liver with flour, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

Cook

  1. Fry the liver in butter with minced parsley and chopped onion.

  2. Add enough gravy or hot water to create a sauce.

  3. Let it stew for a few minutes.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Sheep's liver
Is the main ingredient, giving the dish its meaty body and rich flavour.
Flour
Coats the slices so they brown in the fat and help thicken the sauce.
Butter
Fat for frying that adds richness and helps the coated slices brown.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, adding savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the liver. Liver overcooks quickly and turns dry and grainy when it is cooked too long over high heat. Keep the frying brief so the inside stays tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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