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Veal Heart

A braised veal heart cooked with salt, pepper, butter, flour, water, onion, parsley, cloves, peppercorns, carrot, and salt pork fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Heart

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Remove tough membranes from the veal heart and soak in cold water with salt for 1 hour.

  2. Wipe the heart and stuff it with stale bread crumbs seasoned with salt, pepper, and moistened with melted butter.

  3. Rub the heart with salt and pepper, then dredge it with flour.

Brown and braise

  1. Fry the heart in a pan with a little fat from salt pork until browned.

  2. Place the heart in a braising kettle and add water, minced onion, parsley, cloves, peppercorns, and chopped carrot.

  3. Cover tightly and cook for 2 hours in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C), turning the heart 3 or 4 times while baking.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal heart
Forms the main meat that becomes tender during long, moist braising.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb melted butter and form a moist stuffing that stays inside the heart.
Flour
Coats the surface so it browns during frying and thickens the braising liquid slightly.
Melted butter
Moistens the bread crumb stuffing and adds richness.
Fat from salt pork
Conducts heat in the pan and adds savory flavor to the browned surface.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and braise slowly. Long, covered cooking in moist heat breaks down the tough connective tissue of the heart. Cooking too hot or uncovered can dry the meat and leave it chewy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, pepper, butter, flour, parsley, clove. 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.

More veal heart recipes

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