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Liver Salad

A salad made from boiled liver, beef, onion, hard boiled eggs, seasoned with pepper, coarse sea salt, sage, and mixed with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Liver Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil liver and beef until tender.

  2. Chop liver, beef, onion, and hard boiled eggs finely.

Season and mold

  1. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and sage.

  2. Mix with the gravy until soft enough.

  3. Transfer to a deep dish to mold.

Serve

  1. When ready to eat, turn out and garnish with sliced hard boiled eggs.

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

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Liver + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Provides the main meaty flavour and a fine, firm texture once chopped.
Beef
Adds savoury body and bulk, becoming tender when boiled.
Hard boiled eggs
Add soft richness and texture to the chopped mixture.
Gravy
Moistens the chopped mixture so it binds and becomes soft enough to mold.

The step that matters

Mix with the gravy until soft enough. Too little gravy leaves the chopped meats dry and crumbly, so they will not hold a shape when molded. Mixing until evenly moistened lets the mixture bind and set firm in the dish.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, beef, egg, pepper, sage. 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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