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A Nice Way of Cooking Calf's or Pig's Liver

A method for cooking calf or pig liver in butter with onion, nutmeg, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

A Nice Way of Cooking Calf's or Pig's Liver

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Pour boiling water over the liver and discard it.

Cook and make the gravy

  1. Brown the liver in its own juices, turning until browned on both sides.

  2. Remove the liver and add cold water to the frying pan to make gravy.

  3. Add the chopped onion, salt, nutmeg, and butter to the pan.

  4. Bring to a boil, then return the liver for 1 more minute.

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. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Onion + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Its protein sets and browns in the pan, giving the dish its main body and texture.
Butter
Adds richness and helps carry flavour into the onion and gravy.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy as it softens in the pan.

The step that matters

Returning the liver for one minute. Liver cooks quickly and turns grainy and tough if overcooked. Returning it briefly to the simmering gravy only warms it through and keeps it tender.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, onion, butter):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, onion, butter. 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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