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Hearts, Sheep's, with Batter Pudding

A baked dish of sheep's hearts covered in a flour, milk, water, and egg batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Hearts, Sheep's, with Batter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hearts

  1. Prepare the sheep's hearts as in the previous recipe and bake them for 1 hour.

  2. Drain the hearts from the gravy.

  3. Place the hearts in a deep, well-buttered pie dish.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour smoothly with ½ cup of milk and ½ cup of water.

  2. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs and a pinch of salt.

  3. Ensure the mixture is smooth and free from lumps.

  4. Let the batter rest for 1 hour if possible.

  5. Just before baking, stir in the well-whisked egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter around the hearts in the pie dish.

  2. Bake until the pudding is set.

  3. Thicken and flavor the reserved gravy.

  4. Serve the gravy in a tureen.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Fine flour
Forms the batter's structure as it sets around the hearts.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter; whites, whisked in, lighten it and help it set airy.
Milk
Adds richness and moisture to the batter, softening its texture as it bakes.
Sheep's hearts
Main meat, baked first and set into the pudding as its centrepiece.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg whites just before baking. Whisked whites trap air that gives lift. If they stand or are overmixed, they deflate and the pudding bakes up dense rather than light.

“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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