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Stuffed Heart

A cooked heart stuffed with bread crumbs, baked with onion and butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Heart

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the heart

  1. Wash the heart thoroughly to remove all blood.

  2. Cut through the partition to make the two cells into one, being careful not to cut through to the outside.

  3. Prepare stuffing with bread crumbs as for roast turkey and fill the cavity of the heart.

  4. Cover the opening with greased paper or cloth to secure the stuffing.

Bake and make gravy

  1. Place the heart in a deep pan with plenty of water.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for two hours or longer, basting and turning often.

  3. While the heart is roasting, place the valves (deaf ears) in a saucepan with 1 pint of cold water and the sliced onion.

  4. Simmer slowly for one hour.

  5. In the same saucepan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter, add 1 tablespoon of flour, then stir in the strained liquid from the valves to make gravy.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Flour
Thickens the butter and valve liquid into a smooth gravy.
Butter
Forms the roux with flour and adds richness to the gravy.
Bread crumbs
Make up the stuffing that fills the cavity and absorbs juices.

The step that matters

Cover the opening securely before baking. If the cover does not hold, the stuffing can escape during the long roast, leaving the heart dry and the filling lost in the pan.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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