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Stuffed

A dish of beef hearts stuffed with ham, breadcrumbs, butter, and egg, boiled then browned and served with a reduced sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the hearts

  1. Remove the ventricles and dividing wall from the hearts, then wash and dry them.

  2. In a bowl, combine chopped ham, bread crumbs, melted butter, pepper, salt, and enough beaten egg to bind the mixture.

  3. Stuff each heart with the mixture and tie them in a piece of cloth.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the stuffed hearts in salted water for three hours or until tender.

  2. Carefully remove the cloths, rub the hearts with butter, sprinkle with flour, and brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  3. Reduce the cooking liquid and thicken it to serve with mashed potatoes and apple 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hearts
Form the main body of the dish and provide the meaty, chewy texture once tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body so it holds together when cooked.
Egg
Binds the stuffing mixture so it holds its shape inside the heart.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Chopped ham
Adds salty, savory flavor to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Brown in the oven after removing the cloths. The hearts are already tender from boiling, so the oven step is only for browning. Rubbing with butter and dusting with flour helps the surface brown evenly; too little heat or time leaves them pale.

“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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