Skip to main content
Main

Ox Heart

A roasted ox heart stuffed with minced meat and onions, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Ox Heart

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the ox heart in lukewarm water for 2 hours.

  2. Remove blood and skin from the heart.

  3. Drain and dry the heart.

  4. Stuff the heart with minced meat, chopped onions, salt, and pepper.

Roast

  1. Place the heart in a 400°F (200°C) oven or on a spit over a good fire.

  2. Wrap the heart in buttered paper if roasting on a spit.

  3. Baste the heart occasionally.

  4. Cook the heart for about 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with oil, piquante, poivrade, or ravigote sauce.

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. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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; dense muscle that becomes tender with long, moist cooking.
Onions
Add moisture and sweetness as they soften and release their juices into the stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, carrying heat to the surface and helping it brown and stay moist.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the heart. Surface moisture steams the meat instead of letting it brown, so a dry surface gives better colour and flavour once it hits the heat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter. 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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes