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Chickens' Livers with Carry

A sautéed chicken liver dish served with a creamy breadcrumb-coated sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chickens' Livers with Carry

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the livers

  1. Clean and separate the livers.

  2. Dip the livers in seasoned egg.

  3. Coat the livers with breadcrumbs.

Make the sauce

  1. Sauté the livers in butter until cooked through.

  2. Add butter to the same pan.

  3. Add chopped onion to the pan and cook for 5 minutes.

  4. Mix flour with baking powder.

  5. Add the flour mixture to the pan with stock.

  6. Strain the sauce over the livers.

Serve

  1. 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat for frying the livers and enriches the sauce with richness and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the breadcrumb coating to the livers so it adheres during frying.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the livers when fried.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the flour mixture slightly as it cooks.
Seasoned cream
Adds richness and body, making the sauce smoother and creamier.

The step that matters

Sauté the livers in butter until cooked through. Liver overcooks quickly and turns dry and grainy, while undercooked liver is unsafe. Cooking over steady heat until just firm keeps it tender and fully cooked.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, flour, egg, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, flour, egg, pepper. 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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