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Calps Liver

A liver dish marinated in oil, herbs, and spices, then roasted and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Calps Liver

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bring water with a little salt to a boil.

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

Marinate

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

  2. Add the liver, cover, and marinate for 4 to 6 hours, turning occasionally.

Roast and serve

  1. Wrap the liver in buttered paper and roast on a spit, basting with oil from the marinade.

  2. Remove the paper a few minutes before done, baste with drippings until cooked, and serve with gravy.

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

Liver (in the method)
Is the main protein; boiling, marinating and roasting shape its final texture and flavour.
Sweet oil
Carries the herbs into the liver during marinating and keeps the surface moist while roasting.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the liver and the gravy.
Claret wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the liver.

The step that matters

Remove the paper a few minutes before done. Wrapped meat steams instead of browning. Unwrapping near the end lets the surface brown and dry slightly, while basting with drippings keeps it from drying out. Overcooked liver turns dry and grainy, so timing matters.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, parsley, pepper, butter, flour, 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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