Skip to main content
Main

Stuffed Heart

A cooked heart stuffed with bread and onion, simmered or boiled, then baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Heart

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the heart thoroughly inside and out.

  2. Stuff the heart with the bread mixture and sew up the opening.

Cook

  1. Cover the heart with water and simmer until tender.

  2. Alternatively, boil for 10 minutes and then place in a fireless cooker for 6 to 8 hours.

  3. Remove from water about 30 minutes before serving.

Finish

  1. Dredge with flour, pepper, and salt.

  2. Alternatively, sprinkle with crumbs and bake until brown.

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

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

  2. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Heart
Forms the main meat and becomes tender with long, moist cooking.
Broken bread
Absorbs liquid and gives the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Fat
Browns the surface, adding colour and savoury flavour.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and moisture to the bread stuffing.

The step that matters

Simmer until tender. Heart is a tough, muscular meat that needs long, gentle, moist cooking to break down its connective tissue. Rapid boiling can toughen the surface and leave the centre firm, so keep the water at a gentle simmer.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes