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Bullock's Liver Fried with Potatoes

A dish of sliced bullock's liver fried with potatoes and cabbage or carrots, finished in a thickened sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bullock's Liver Fried with Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver and vegetables

  1. Stew the liver in a small quantity of water for at least 3 hours.

  2. Remove the liver.

  3. Stew the potatoes and cabbage (or carrots) in the same liquid, adding pepper and salt to taste.

  4. Remove the vegetables.

  5. Break them into pieces the size of a pigeon's egg.

Fry

  1. Heat lard or dripping in a frying pan.

  2. Add the liver (sliced thin) and the vegetable pieces.

  3. Fry until cooked through.

  4. Take everything out.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add the cooking liquid to the pan.

  2. Thicken with flour.

  3. Warm it up.

  4. Pour the thickened sauce over the liver and vegetables to complete the dish.

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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Potato + cabbagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cabbage + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together978 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bullock's liver
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked tender by long gentle stewing.
Potatoes
Starchy bulk that holds its shape and soaks up the savoury flavour of the cooking liquid.
Cabbage or carrots
Adds moisture and mild sweetness, bulking out the dish with soft vegetable pieces.
Lard or dripping
Fat for frying that carries flavour and gives the pieces a golden, savoury surface.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce that coats the liver and vegetables.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with flour. Flour must be mixed in so starch can gelatinise in warm liquid; added dry or left unheated, it leaves lumps and a raw, floury taste.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, potato, pepper, flour. 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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