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Veal Liver

Sliced veal liver is coated, fried, stewed, and served in a milk and flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and liver match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 392 recipes. Both carry enoic acid, which smells butter, cheesy. The science ↓

Veal Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the liver slices well.

  2. Dry the liver slices on a towel.

  3. Roll the liver in flour.

Fry and stew

  1. Fry the liver in a small amount of dripping and a little butter until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Remove the liver from the pan.

  3. Add a few tablespoons of hot water to the frying pan, shake the pan around, and pour the hot water over the liver.

  4. Cut any uncooked liver into pieces about 2 inches long.

  5. Stew the pieces in a little hot water until tender.

  6. Drain the water.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Add enough milk to cover the liver.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour.

  3. Boil for a few minutes 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. Veal + livertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal liver
Is the main protein, cooked until firm and tender with a mild, rich flavour.
Flour
Coats the liver so it browns during frying and helps thicken the milk sauce.
Dripping
Provides fat for frying, giving browning and a savoury flavour to the liver.
Milk
Forms a creamy, mild sauce that softens the liver as it simmers.

The step that matters

Stewing the liver until tender. Liver turns tough and grainy if overcooked, but undercooked liver is unsafe to eat. Stewing gently in a little liquid softens the connective tissue, while the flour and milk thicken the sauce.

“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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