Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Calf’s Liver, Larded, with Celery-puree
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the liver
Trim the calf's liver and lard its upper surface with bacon, leaving some space bare at both ends.
Season the liver with coarse sea salt and spices.
Place the liver in a stewpan lined with bacon trimmings and minced vegetables.
Braise
Moisten the liver with broth or wine until just covered.
Cover with a greased sheet of paper and set on a brisk fire until the moisture reduces by one third.
Move the stewpan to a slow fire or a slack oven, adding hot embers on the lid if needed.
Braise the liver, ensuring it does not run short of moisture.
Once cooked, drain the liver and glaze it with a paste brush.
Make the sauce and serve
Lighten the remaining liquid with a little wine or broth and boil for a few minutes.
Thicken the sauce with brown sauce or kneaded butter.
Serve the liver on a bed of celery puree and pour the sauce around it, passing it through a sieve.
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.
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Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,173 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,518 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,420 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Liver + carrottop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together321 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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 cooked element, becoming tender and moist through slow braising.
- Bacon
- Larding fat melts during braising, keeping the lean liver moist and adding savoury flavour.
- Minced vegetables
- Form a flavouring bed under the liver and add aromatic sweetness to the cooking liquid.
- Broth or wine
- Provides the moisture for braising and, reduced, forms the base of the sauce.
- Brown sauce or kneaded butter
- Thickens the reduced cooking liquid into a glossy, coating sauce.
The step that matters
Keeping the liver moist during braising. Liver is lean and dries out and toughens if the liquid runs low or the heat is too high. Keeping it just covered, with gentle heat, lets collagen and fat soften slowly and keeps the meat tender.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, carrot, wine, sauce, celery):
- Tomatofits better
- Turnipfits better
- Mustardfits about as well
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against liver, carrot, wine, sauce, celery. 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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