Name: Liver a LA Millicent
Ingredients: liver; bread; brown sauce; grated ham; mustard; fried parsley; potatoes

Why it works: Parsley and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Liver a LA Millicent

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the liver as directed in the recipe for Liver.
Fry pieces of bread larger than the liver slices.
Coat the smaller oval bread pieces with brown sauce mixed with grated ham and mustard after frying.
Dish the liver on the large bread slices and place the small ones on top.
Garnish with fried parsley and potatoes or a purée.
Make a gravy in the pan and serve separately.

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.

Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mustard + potatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,340 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,588 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,120 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, bread, sauce, ham, mustard, parsley):

Shallotfits better
Horseradishfits better
Lettucefits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, bread, sauce, ham, mustard, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.