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Calf S- Liver Loaf

A loaf made from calf liver, bread crumbs, eggs, onion juice, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Calf S- Liver Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the liver

  1. Remove the skin from the calf's liver and cut the flesh into slices.

  2. Cook the liver slices in boiling salted water for 5 minutes, then drain and chop finely.

Mix and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped liver, onion juice, soaked and wrung bread crumbs, salt, poultry seasoning, beaten eggs, and lemon juice.

  2. Mix well and shape into a loaf.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  4. Liver + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Calf's liver
Forms the main body of the loaf and gives it its rich, savoury flavour.
Eggs
Set as they cook, binding the chopped liver and crumbs into a sliceable loaf.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, keeping the loaf tender rather than dense.
Onion juice
Adds a savoury aroma that carries through the liver flavour.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. The eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves a loose, wet centre, while overbaking dries the liver and crumbs and makes the loaf tough and crumbly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Applefits about as well
  2. Pumpkinfits about as well
  3. Red currantfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, onion, bread, egg. 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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