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A Winter Relish

A winter relish made with heart, liver, forcemeat stuffing, gravy, butter, cayenne pepper, salt, ketchup, soy sauce, bacon, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,099 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, soy (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the heart

  1. Stuff the heart with forcemeat and roast it over the fire until cooked through.

Make the sauce

  1. Slice the liver and fry the slices.

  2. In a bowl, combine gravy, melted butter, cayenne, salt, ketchup, and soy sauce to taste.

Serve

  1. Arrange the liver around the heart on a serving dish and pour the gravy over them.

  2. Garnish with rolled bacon and crispy parsley.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together28,543 recipes

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together15,317 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Liver + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Butter and sauce share little aroma chemistry, yet 15,317 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Calf's or sheep's heart
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming firm and sliceable when cooked through.
Calf's or sheep's liver
Provides a rich, savoury, tender meat that contrasts with the firm heart.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth, coating the meats and pooling on the plate.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the gravy a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.
Rolled bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat and browning as a garnish.

The step that matters

Roast the heart until cooked through. Heart is dense muscle, so it needs enough heat and time to cook fully; stopping early leaves it tough and unsafe, while overcooking dries it out.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, butter, pepper, ketchup, sauce):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Celeryabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Sageabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Capersabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, butter, pepper, ketchup, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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