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Beef Heart, Stuffed

A beef heart stuffed with roast turkey stuffing, baked with water, onion, butter, and flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Heart, Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the heart

  1. Wash the heart thoroughly to remove all blood.

  2. Cut through the partition to make the two cells into one, being careful not to cut through to the outside.

  3. Fill the cavity with stuffing.

  4. Cover with greased paper or cloth to secure it in place.

Roast and make the gravy

  1. Bake in a deep pan with plenty of water at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours or longer, basting and turning often.

  2. While the heart is roasting, cut off the valves (deaf ears) after washing and place them in a saucepan with 1 pint of cold water and the sliced onion.

  3. Simmer slowly for 1 hour.

  4. Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour, then the strained liquid from the valves, and bring to a boil to serve as 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Thickens the butter and strained liquid into a smooth gravy.
Butter
Forms a roux with the flour, adding richness and body to the gravy.
Onion
Flavours the simmering liquid from the valves that becomes the gravy.

The step that matters

Cover with greased paper or cloth to secure it in place.. Securing the stuffed cavity keeps the stuffing from falling out during long roasting and basting, so it cooks inside the heart.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turkey, butter, 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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