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Liver Puddings

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Liver Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the pigs' livers until cooked, then let them cool.

  2. Mince the livers and season with pepper, coarse sea salt, sage, marjoram, and powdered cloves.

  3. Fill the cleaned skins with the mixture and tie the ends securely.

  4. Prick the skins with a fork to prevent bursting.

  5. Boil the filled skins in hot water for about an hour.

  6. Store in stone jars, covered, and serve cold, sliced thick or broiled.

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. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

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

  2. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  5. Sage + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pepper, sage, marjoram):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, sage, marjoram. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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