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Ox Heart

A stuffed ox heart roasted after simmering, served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ox Heart

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the heart

  1. Soak the heart in vinegar and water for 3 hours.

  2. Cut off the lobes and gristle.

  3. Stuff the heart with chopped salt pork, bread crumbs, parsley, thyme, pepper, and salt. Tie the heart in a cloth.

Simmer and roast

  1. Simmer slowly for 2 hours, large end up. Remove from heat and take off the cloth.

  2. Dust with flour. Roast until browned, with pieces of fat pork placed in the pan over the heart.

  3. Make gravy by stirring 1 tablespoon of flour into the pan with 1 cup of hot water.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pork + thymetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox heart
Is the meat being cooked, so its lobes and gristle are trimmed away first.
Salt pork
Melts into the stuffing, adding fat and savory flavor to the meat.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices in the stuffing, helping it hold together and stay moist.
Vinegar
Acidity in the soaking liquid helps tenderize the tough muscle fibers.
Flour
Dusted on the surface and used in the gravy to help thicken and brown.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 2 hours. Tough muscle like heart needs long, gentle moist heat to break down connective tissue. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and leave it dry.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pork, bread, thyme, pepper, flour):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pork, bread, thyme, pepper, flour. 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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