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Devilled Liver

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Devilled Liver

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash, dry, and slice the calf’s liver thinly.

  2. Brush each slice with mustard and chutney.

  3. Sprinkle with devil pepper.

  4. Dip in oil or liquefied butter.

  5. Broil over a clear fire.

  6. Serve in a ring with a mound of broiled mushrooms in the center and crisply fried bacon rolls around.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together881 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Liver + mushroomtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together572 recipes

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

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

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, butter, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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