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Beef-heart, Stewed

A stewed ox heart stuffed with bread crumbs, onion, celery, and butter, served with a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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-heart, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Wash the heart well and remove the muscles and blood.

  2. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, onion, celery, butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Stuff the mixture into the heart and tie it with twine.

  4. Wrap the heart in a cloth and sew the ends to keep the stuffing in.

Stew and make the gravy

  1. Place the heart in a small stew pan, point down, and cover with boiling water.

  2. Cover the pan and simmer gently for three hours.

  3. After cooking, there should be about 1 pint of water left in the pan.

  4. Remove the cloth and place the heart on a platter.

  5. Add a little water to the pan, thicken the juices with flour or corn-starch mixed with water, and season with salt and pepper.

  6. Pour the gravy over and around the heart.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Ox heart
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and butter in the stuffing, keeping it moist and holding its shape.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing, carrying flavor and softening the crumbs.
Flour or corn-starch
Thickens the cooking juices into a smooth gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for three hours. A gentle simmer lets the tough muscle fibers of the heart break down slowly and become tender. A rolling boil toughens the meat and can make it dry and stringy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, celery, butter, pepper, 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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