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Chicken Livers, with Madeira

Sautéed chicken livers simmered in Madeira wine, flour, stock, olives, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,888 recipes. Both carry acetic acid hexyl ester, which smells sweet, green. The science ↓

Chicken Livers, with Madeira

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the chicken livers.

  2. Cut the livers into quarters.

Make the sauce

  1. In a chafing dish, add the butter and the livers.

  2. Cover the dish.

  3. Cook for five minutes.

  4. Stir in the flour until well blended.

  5. Add the brown stock and stir until smooth and thick.

  6. If the sauce is not dark enough, add a little caramel.

  7. Add the Madeira.

  8. Season with salt and cayenne, keeping in mind that wine intensifies salt flavor.

  9. Fold in the olives.

  10. Place a hot-water pan underneath.

  11. Cover the dish.

  12. Simmer for ten minutes.

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. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

  2. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Olive + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

Chicken livers
Provide the main meaty body of the dish, cooking to a tender texture.
Madeira
Adds sweet, fortified wine depth that balances the rich sauce and intensifies salt flavor.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the stock and butter, giving it body.
Brown stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savory meaty flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping to cook the livers and carry flavor.
Olives
Contribute briny, salty flavor that contrasts with the rich livers and wine.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and brown stock until smooth and thick. Flour must be fully blended into the fat and liquid so it can gelatinize evenly; lumps form if it is added to hot liquid unevenly or left unstirred, leaving a grainy, uneven 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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