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Calf's Liver

Calf's liver that is boiled, marinated, then roasted, sautéed, or oven-finished with butter, wine, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Calf's Liver

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. In a pot, bring water and salt to a boil.

  2. Add the liver and cook for about 5 minutes, then drain.

  3. In a bowl, mix sweet oil, bay leaf, thyme, parsley, green onion, salt, and pepper.

  4. Coat the liver with this mixture and marinate for 4 to 6 hours, turning occasionally.

Roast or sauté

  1. To roast, wrap the liver in buttered paper and place it on a spit over a fire.

  2. Baste with oil from the marinade.

  3. Remove the paper a few minutes before done and baste with drippings.

  4. Cook for 35 to 45 minutes.

  5. To sauté, melt butter in a frying pan over high heat.

  6. Add parsley and green onions, then the liver cut into slices.

  7. Sprinkle with flour, add warm broth, claret wine, salt, pepper, and allspice.

  8. Cook for 10 to 12 minutes.

Finish in the oven and serve

  1. To cook in the oven, fry the boiled liver slices in butter for 5 minutes, turning once.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, place on a warm dish, and top with butter mixed with parsley.

  3. Bake in a warm oven for 2 to 3 minutes, then drizzle with lemon juice before serving.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Main protein; cooking firms its texture and sets its structure as it browns.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and browning in the pan and on the finished dish.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the pan juices into a light sauce with the broth and wine.
Claret wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the pan sauce.
Sweet oil
Carries the herbs in the marinade and helps baste the liver for moisture.

The step that matters

Boiling the liver before marinating. Boiling the liver for about 5 minutes firms it and sets its surface before marinating, which helps it hold together when roasted or sautéed. Overcooking it makes it tough and dry.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, thyme, parsley, pepper, butter, wine, allspice):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, thyme, parsley, pepper, butter, wine, allspice. 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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