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Another Way of Cooking Liver

Liver wrapped in paper with bacon, mushrooms, chives, and parsley, grilled and served with poivrade sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,150 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Another Way of Cooking Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the liver thickly and marinate as for roasted liver.

Wrap and cook

  1. Wrap the slices in oiled and dried paper with minced bacon, mushrooms, chives, and parsley.

  2. Fold the papers tightly and grill gently for about 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve in the papers with a sauce boat of poivrade sauce.

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. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mushroom + chivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Liver + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Is the main protein, cooked gently inside the paper to stay moist and tender.
Minced fat bacon
Melts as it cooks, adding fat and savoury flavour to the liver.
Mushrooms
Release moisture into the paper, adding earthy flavour and juiciness.
Poivrade sauce
Served alongside to add a rich, savoury sauce that complements the liver.

The step that matters

Fold the papers tightly and grill gently. A tight seal traps steam and juices so the liver cooks in its own moisture. Gentle heat keeps the liver tender, since high heat or long cooking toughens it.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, mushroom, chive, sauce. 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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