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To Stew a Beef's Heart

A stew made from beef heart, celery, onions, potatoes, and butter‑flour roux, seasoned with pepper and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Stew a Beef's Heart

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the heart

  1. Clean the heart and cut it lengthwise into large pieces.

  2. Put the pieces into a pot with a little salt and pepper, and cover them with cold water.

  3. Parboil them for a quarter of an hour, carefully skimming off the blood that rises to the top.

  4. Take them out, cut them into mouthfuls, and having strained the liquid, return them to it.

Stew

  1. Add a head or two of chopped celery, a few sliced onions, a dozen potatoes pared and quartered, and a piece of butter rolled in flour.

  2. Season with whole pepper and a few cloves if you like.

  3. Let it stew slowly until all the pieces of heart and the vegetables are quite tender.

Variations

  1. You may stew a beef's kidney in the same manner.

  2. The heart and liver of a calf make a good dish cooked as above.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

570Calories
13 gProtein
13 gFat
98 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Leslie. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Beef heart (in the method)
Forms the main meat; slow stewing softens its dense muscle until tender.
Potatoes (in the method)
Thicken the broth as they break down and add body to the stew.
Butter rolled in flour
Melts into the liquid and thickens it, giving the stew a richer body.
Celery (in the method)
Adds aromatic flavour and a fresh, slightly bitter note to the broth.
Onions (in the method)
Build savoury sweetness as they soften during the long stew.

The step that matters

Skimming the blood after parboiling. Blood and impurities rise as grey foam when meat first heats. Removing them keeps the stew broth clear and free of harsh, metallic flavour.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper. 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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