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Larded Calf's Liver

A stew of larded calf's liver cooked with bacon, lard, tomatoes, onion, and marjoram.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Larded Calf's Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the calf's liver well.

  2. Insert the strips of bacon or salt pork into the surface of the liver using a larding pin.

Stew

  1. In a pot, combine the liver, lard, a little water, tomatoes or tomato ketchup, minced onion, and sweet marjoram.

  2. Set the pot on hot coals in the corner of the fireplace.

  3. Stew the mixture slowly for four hours.

Serve

  1. Serve the liver with the gravy around it.

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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  2. Liver + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  3. Tomato + marjoramtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together299 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Pork + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and rich through slow stewing.
Bacon or salt pork
Larded strips add fat and savoury flavour as they render into the liver.
Lard
Adds fat that enriches the stew and helps keep the liver moist.
Tomatoes or tomato ketchup
Adds acidity and body to the gravy that forms around the liver.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness that flavours the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stew the mixture slowly for four hours. Long, gentle heat breaks down the connective tissue and keeps liver tender. Too much heat or too short a time leaves it tough and dry, since liver proteins tighten quickly when overcooked.

Swap the marjoram

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Marjoramthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pork, tomato, 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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