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Fat Liver Cake, or Pain De Foies De Foulardes

A savory cake made from poultry livers, ham, sherry, and other ingredients, baked and garnished with aspic jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,176 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Fat Liver Cake, or Pain De Foies De Foulardes

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 livers

  1. Soak the poultry livers in cold water to whiten them and remove any gall stains.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the livers, fat ham, lean ham, sherry, bay leaf, pepper, salt, and mace.

  3. Simmer the mixture with the lid on for 2-3 hours until nearly dry but not browned.

  4. Mash the mixture into a paste.

Make the mixture

  1. Mix the raw egg with the panada.

  2. Combine the egg‑panada mixture with the pounded liver mixture and press through a sieve.

  3. Chop the red tongue, hard‑boiled yolks, and mushrooms.

  4. Mix the chopped items into the paste.

Bake and serve

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a mold, layer thin slices of fat pork at the bottom and on top of the liver cake, then cover with buttered paper.

  3. Set the mold in a shallow pan of water and bake for about 1 hour.

  4. Once baked, remove from the mold, free from fat, and decorate as desired.

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. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Poultry livers
Provide the rich, smooth body that forms the main texture of the cake.
Bread panada
Adds moisture and softness, helping the cake stay tender rather than dense.
Raw egg
Binds the mixture so it holds its shape when baked and sliced.
Hard-boiled yolks
Add richness and a creamy texture that blends into the liver paste.
Fat ham or salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour, keeping the cake moist during cooking.

The step that matters

Simmer until nearly dry but not browned. Cooking the livers gently with a lid keeps them moist and tender. Browning or over-reducing them toughens the proteins and makes the finished paste dry and grainy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, ham, sherry, pepper, bread, egg, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, ham, sherry, pepper, bread, egg, mushroom. 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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