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Liver

Sautéed liver pieces served with a catsup and Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Slice the liver into heart-shaped pieces.

  2. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and cayenne.

  3. Sprinkle with chopped eschalots and dried sage.

  4. Wrap each piece of liver in caul.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt butter in a frying pan and fry the liver quickly until beautifully colored.

  2. Remove from the pan and arrange in a circle on a dish.

  3. In a saucepan, combine melted butter, catsup, and Worcestershire sauce; bring to a boil.

  4. Pour the sauce over the liver and 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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Liver + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Liver
Forms the main body of the dish and browns quickly in hot butter, giving a savory crust.
Butter
Carries heat evenly for frying and enriches the sauce with fat and flavor.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the sauce, balancing the rich liver.
Worcestershire sauce
Contributes savory depth and tang to the catsup sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the liver quickly. Liver turns dry and grainy when overcooked. A short, hot sear browns the surface through Maillard reactions while keeping the inside tender and moist.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Sagethe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, butter, sauce, 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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