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Calf S Liver ‘a LA Matelote’

A French-style calf liver dish cooked with bacon, ham, wine, and a butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Red wine and white wine share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 97 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Calf S Liver ‘a LA Matelote’

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Lard the calf's liver with fillets of bacon and raw ham. Season with coarse sea salt and spices.

  2. In a stewpan, melt butter and add the sliced streaky bacon. Heat on medium.

  3. Fry the liver, turning it, then moisten with red and white wine. Cover with greased paper.

Braise and make the sauce

  1. Bring the liquid to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cook for an hour.

  2. Drain the liver and bacon. Add gravy to the liquid, boil, skim off fat, and strain.

  3. Thicken the sauce with kneaded butter, then return the liver to the stewpan and pour the sauce over it.

  4. Cook on low for 15 minutes, then add the bacon, glazed onions, and olives. Boil the sauce and serve.

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. Red wine + white winetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together97 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. White wine + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

  5. Red wine + olivetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Main ingredient that becomes tender and rich when braised slowly in liquid.
Streaky bacon
Renders fat into the pan and adds savory, smoky flavor to the braising liquid.
Red and white wine
Acidity and aroma that moisten the liver and build the sauce's flavor.
Kneaded butter
Thickens the sauce to a smooth, glossy consistency at the end.
Glazed onions
Adds sweetness and a tender texture to the finished dish.
Olives
Adds briny, salty contrast that balances the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Braising the liver at a gentle simmer. Boiling hard or cooking too long toughens the liver's proteins and makes it dry and grainy. Keeping the liquid at a low, gentle simmer lets the connective tissue soften while the liver stays tender and moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, ham, butter, red wine, white wine, olive):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, ham, butter, red wine, white wine, olive. 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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