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Calf's Liver Stewed a l’Italienne

A stew of calf liver cooked with onion, garlic, wine, Espagnole sauce, mushrooms, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Calf's Liver Stewed a l’Italienne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the calf’s liver into small pieces.

  2. Heat the clarified butter in a pan over medium heat.

Cook

  1. Add the onion and garlic, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Moisten with white wine and Espagnole sauce.

  4. Add the chopped mushrooms and cook for another 3 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with parsley.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf’s liver
Forms the main body of the stew, cooking to a tender texture when cut small and heated briefly.
White wine
Moistens the pan, adding acidity and helping lift flavorful browned bits into the sauce.
Espagnole sauce
Adds body and savory depth to the liquid, thickening and enriching the stew.
Mushrooms
Contribute moisture and earthy savory flavor as they cook down in the sauce.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in the hot butter.

The step that matters

Cooking the liver with the onion and garlic. Liver is delicate and turns firm and dry if overcooked, so it should be cooked briefly over medium heat. Keeping the heat moderate prevents the liver from toughening while still allowing the onion and garlic to soften and sweeten.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, butter, onion, garlic, pepper, white wine, sauce):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, butter, onion, garlic, pepper, white wine, 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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