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To Roast Beef Heart

Roasted beef heart stuffed with dressing, served with gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and turkey work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 248 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

To Roast Beef Heart

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash the beef heart carefully and open it to remove the ventricles.

  2. Soak the heart in cold water until the blood is discharged, then wipe it dry.

  3. Stuff the heart with dressing as you would for turkey.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the heart at 400°F (200°C) for about 1.5 hours.

  2. Serve with gravy thickened with some of the stuffing and a glass of wine.

  3. It is also nice hashed and served with currant jelly.

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. Beef + turkeytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Wine + curranttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Beef + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).

  4. Turkey + curranttop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together68 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Turkey + winetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together70 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef heart
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender and savory when roasted.
Dressing
Fills the heart, adding moisture and flavor as it cooks inside the meat.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory richness to the cooked heart when served.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the serving sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and tartness to balance the rich meat.

The step that matters

Soaking the heart until the blood is discharged. Soaking draws out residual blood, which can taste metallic and affect the meat's flavor and appearance. Wiping it dry before stuffing helps the surface brown rather than steam in the oven.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turkey, wine):

  1. Grapefits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turkey, wine. 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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