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Beef Heart

A stuffed beef heart roasted and served with rich gravy, currant jelly sauce, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and port wine work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 356 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Beef Heart

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the beef heart very carefully.

  2. Stuff it as you would a hare.

Cook and serve

  1. Roast or bake the stuffed heart until cooked through.

  2. Serve with rich gravy and currant jelly sauce.

  3. Hash any leftovers with the same gravy and add port wine.

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. Currant + port winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Beef + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sauce + port winetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together424 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Beef + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,650 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Beef + curranttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,464 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef heart
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender when roasted or baked until cooked through.
Stuffing
Fills the cavity, adding moisture and flavour to the dense muscle as it cooks.
Rich gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth to the cooked heart when served.
Currant jelly sauce
Adds sweetness and acidity to balance the rich, savoury meat.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the leftover hash.

The step that matters

Roast or bake until cooked through. Beef heart is a dense, lean muscle. Cooking it fully makes it safe to eat, while overcooking dries it out and makes it tough, so the stuffed heart needs steady, even heat and a check that it is cooked through.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sauce, port wine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sauce, port wine. 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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