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Liver Stew

A stew of liver simmered with vinegar, onion, herbs, water, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,226 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Liver Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Soak the liver overnight in vinegar with sliced onion and herbs to whiten and firm it.

  2. Trim small bits of the liver, flour them, and lightly fry with sliced onion.

Stew

  1. Add 3 cups of water, peppercorns, and a small bunch of herbs to the pan.

  2. Season with salt and add lemon juice or pickle.

  3. Stew for 1 hour.

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. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Vinegar + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Liver + vinegartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Forms the main body of the stew, becoming firmer and paler after soaking in vinegar.
Vinegar
Soaking in vinegar whitens and firms the liver before cooking.
Lemon juice or pickle
Adds acidity that brightens the finished stew.

The step that matters

Soak the liver overnight in vinegar. The acid in the vinegar firms and whitens the liver's surface and mellows its strong flavour. A shorter soak leaves the liver softer and more strongly flavoured.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, vinegar, onion):

  1. Applefits better
  2. Grapefits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, vinegar, onion. 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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