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Broiled Liver

Broiled liver slices are soaked, dried, buttered, broiled, and seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Liver and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,065 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Broiled Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the liver into ¾ inch slices.

  2. Soak the slices in cold water for 5 minutes to draw out the blood.

  3. Wipe the slices dry.

  4. Dip the slices in melted butter.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil for 5 to 8 minutes, turning every 10 seconds at first.

  2. Season with melted butter, pepper, and salt.

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. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Provides the main body of the dish, with a rich, dense texture when broiled.
Melted butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the surface brown under the broiler.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the surface and enhances the savoury flavour of the liver.

The step that matters

Wiping the slices dry before broiling. Surface moisture must evaporate before the liver can brown, so wet slices steam instead of browning. Patting them dry lets the butter and heat create a browned crust.

“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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