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Sour Hash

A dish of boiled calf liver and heart, chopped and served with a seasoned gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sour Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meats

  1. Boil the calf’s liver and heart until fully cooked.

  2. Allow to cool, then chop finely.

Make the gravy

  1. Make a gravy using the boiling water.

  2. Season the gravy with salt, pepper, butter, and vinegar.

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 + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 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

Calf’s liver
Provides the main meaty body and a rich, earthy flavour to the hash.
Calf heart
Adds a firm, dense meat texture that holds its shape when chopped.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the gravy a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and gives the dish its sour character.

The step that matters

Boil the liver and heart until fully cooked. Offal must be cooked through so no pink remains, which makes the meat safe to eat. Thorough cooking also firms the texture so the meat chops cleanly.

“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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