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Stewed Beef Heart

A stew of beef heart with potatoes, onions, cayenne pepper, bay leaves, parsley, celery, tomato ketchup or tomatoes, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Beef Heart

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the heart

  1. Cut the heart into small pieces and remove all tough, fibrous tissue.

  2. Wash thoroughly in cold, salted water.

  3. Put the pieces into a pot of cold water to cover them; add 2 teaspoons of salt.

  4. Cover closely and stew gently for 10 minutes, removing the scum as it rises.

  5. Take out the meat with a skimmer, pour off and strain the liquid, and wash out the pot.

Stew until tender

  1. Return the strained liquid to the pot, add the heart, potatoes, onions, tomato ketchup, celery, cayenne pepper, butter, and bay leaves; stir well.

  2. Cover and stew gently until tender, stirring occasionally.

  3. If necessary, replenish the water with boiling water.

  4. Season with pepper and salt before serving.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef heart
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long gentle stewing.
Potatoes
Thicken the stewing liquid as they break down and add body to the dish.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften into the stew.
Tomato ketchup
Adds acidity and sweetness that give the stew a tangy, rounded flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stew gently until tender, with the lid on. Tough connective tissue in heart breaks down slowly at low, steady heat. A hard boil toughens and dries the meat, and stirring only occasionally keeps the stew from scorching.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, pepper, parsley, celery, tomato, butter):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, pepper, parsley, celery, tomato, 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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