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Liver Soup

A savory soup made with stock, ham, onion, liver, and seasonings, thickened with roux and served over croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Liver Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil ham and onion in water until reduced by half.

  2. Chop left-over liver and ham finely, then add to the stock.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Thicken with brown roux.

  5. If available, mince and add boiled heart or fried bacon for extra flavor.

  6. Mince any cold boiled, fried, or poached egg and add to the soup.

Serve

  1. Pour over croutons in a tureen.

  2. Garnish with minced parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + livertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Ham + livertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown roux
Thickens the stock into a smooth, richer soup body.
Left-over liver
Supplies the main flavor and substance of the soup.
Corned ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Thicken with brown roux. Roux thickens liquid when its starch swells with heat and fat. Add it to simmering stock and stir well, or it may stay lumpy or stay thin.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, liver, pepper, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, liver, pepper, parsley. 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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