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Beef's Heart Stuffed

A stew of diced beef heart with onion, celery, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef's Heart Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the heart

  1. Wash the heart thoroughly and cut it into ½-inch dice.

  2. Place the diced heart in a saucepan and cover with water.

  3. Remove any scum that rises to the surface.

Stew and thicken

  1. When nearly done, add the sliced onion, chopped celery, salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. Stew until the meat is very tender.

  3. Mix the flour with a small amount of water to create a paste.

  4. Thicken the stew with the paste.

  5. Bring to a boil.

  6. Serve.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef heart
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender after long, slow stewing.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the stew's flavour and mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, body-rich stew when mixed into a paste.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and savoury depth as it softens in the stew.

The step that matters

Adding the flour paste. Flour must be mixed smoothly with cold water before it goes into the hot stew; added dry or in lumps it clumps and thickens unevenly.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, pepper, 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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