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Veal Pluck

A stuffed calf's heart with veal forcemeat and bacon, served with liver, parsley, catsup, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Pluck

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the heart

  1. Wash the heart in several waters.

  2. Soak the heart for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain and dry the heart.

  4. Fill the heart with veal forcemeat.

  5. Tie thin slices of bacon around the heart.

  6. Roast or bake the heart for 1.5 hours.

Make the mince

  1. Soak the liver and lights.

  2. Boil the liver and lights for 1 hour.

  3. Mince the boiled liver and lights.

  4. Combine the mince with pepper, coarse sea salt, thin rind of ½ lemon, ½ blade of mace, and pinch of grated nutmeg.

  5. Cover the mixture with gravy.

  6. Simmer gently until cooked.

  7. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, 1 tablespoon catsup, and a little strained lemon juice.

Fry and serve

  1. Slice the remaining liver.

  2. Fry the sliced liver.

  3. Place the mince on a dish.

  4. Top the mince with the heart.

  5. Garnish with fried liver, thin slices of bacon, toasted sippets, and parsley.

  6. Serve hot with brown gravy.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Liver + vealtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's heart
Forms the main body of the dish, holding the veal forcemeat as it roasts.
Liver
Adds a rich, deep flavour to the mince and a fried garnish.
Lights (lungs)
Gives the mince a soft, tender texture after boiling and mincing.
Veal forcemeat
Fills the heart, adding moisture and richness as it cooks.
Fat bacon
Basts the heart with fat as it cooks, adding savoury flavour and browning.

The step that matters

Roast or bake the heart for 1.5 hours. The heart is dense and the forcemeat inside must cook through without drying the outside. Keeping the bacon wrapped and the oven steady helps the heat reach the centre gently while the fat protects the surface.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, veal, pepper, lemon, nutmeg, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, veal, pepper, lemon, nutmeg, parsley. 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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