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Pig’s Liver, Savoury

A baked dish of sliced pig's liver layered with potatoes and onions, seasoned with sage, salt, pepper, and water, served with apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper 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 ↓

Pig’s Liver, Savoury

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the liver, then cut it into thick slices.

  2. Dice the onions and slice the potatoes.

Assemble

  1. Layer potato at the bottom of a greased pie dish, then add liver slices, sprinkle with onions, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Repeat layers until all ingredients are used, finishing with a layer of potatoes on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour in the water, cover with greased paper, and bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 2 hours.

  2. Remove the paper towards the end to brown the potatoes.

  3. Serve with apple sauce.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pig's liver
Forms the main body of the dish and gives it its rich, savoury flavour.
Potatoes
Add bulk and starch, soaking up the cooking liquid and browning on top.
Onions
Soften and turn sweeter as they bake, adding aroma and flavour to the layers.

The step that matters

Covering, then uncovering the bake. Liver is easily overcooked, and its proteins toughen and dry out with prolonged heat. Baking covered at a low temperature with added water keeps the layers moist. Removing the paper near the end lets the potatoes brown without drying the liver further.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, potato, onion, sage, pepper, sauce):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, potato, onion, sage, pepper, sauce. 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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