Name: To Roast Beef Heart
Ingredients: 1 beef heart; dressing (as for turkey); gravy ingredients (thickened with stuffing); 1 glass of wine; currant jelly (for serving)

Why it works: Beef and turkey work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 248 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

To Roast Beef Heart

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Wash the beef heart carefully and open it to remove the ventricles.
Soak the heart in cold water until the blood is discharged, then wipe it dry.
Stuff the heart with dressing as you would for turkey.
Roast the heart at 350°F (175°C) for about 1.5 hours.
Serve with gravy thickened with some of the stuffing and a glass of wine.
Optionally, serve with currant jelly.

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.

Beef + turkeytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together248 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Wine + curranttop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,323 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Beef + winetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,372 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).
Turkey + curranttop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together68 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Turkey + winetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together70 recipes

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