Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
To Roast Ox Heart
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the heart
Empty the blood from the ox heart, wash it well, and dry it with a clean cloth.
Cut off the dead ears and soak them in lukewarm water.
Fill the heart with veal stuffing and cover the top with writing paper to prevent scorching.
Roast
Suspend the heart with the pointed end downwards and baste it well while roasting for about 2 hours.
Remove the paper when nearly done to allow it to brown.
Make the gravy
In a saucepan, combine the dead ears with water, salt, onion, and allspice; stew gently and skim well.
About 15 minutes before serving, add a browned crust of bread and a lump of butter rolled in flour to the gravy.
Mix and boil, then strain through a sieve, skimming off fat from the dripping pan.
Combine the strained gravy with the remaining gravy in the saucepan and boil together.
Serve
Serve the heart on a hot dish over boiling water, pouring some gravy over it and serving the rest separately.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,302 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,270 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Ox heart
- Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and savoury as it roasts.
- Veal stuffing
- Fills the heart, adding moisture and flavour as it cooks inside.
- Flour
- Thickens the gravy when rolled with butter and stirred in.
- Butter
- Adds richness and body to the gravy as it melts and thickens.
- Bread crust
- Browned and added to the gravy, it gives colour and a toasted flavour.
The step that matters
Baste the heart while roasting. Meat this lean dries out over a long roast. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly, so the heart stays juicy.
Swap the allspice
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, bread, butter, flour):
- Capersfits better
- Garlicfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Allspicethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, bread, 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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