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Stew-Soup or Mock Hare-Soup

A hearty stew made from beef heart, onions, celery, potatoes, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Stew-Soup or Mock Hare-Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the heart

  1. Clean and cut the beef heart into large pieces lengthwise.

  2. Place the pieces in a stewpot with cold water and salt.

  3. Skim away the blood that rises to the surface.

  4. Remove the parboiled pieces and cut them into bite-sized pieces.

Make the stew

  1. Return the pieces to the strained liquid.

  2. Add shredded onion, shredded celery, pepper, allspice, potatoes, and carrots if using.

  3. Simmer until everything is cooked through.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef heart
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender after long simmering in the broth.
Potatoes
Absorb the seasoned broth and thicken the stew as their starch releases during cooking.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour and a fresh, slightly savoury backbone to the broth.
Onion
Builds savoury sweetness and depth as it softens into the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Skim away the blood that rises to the surface. Blood proteins coagulate and form a grey scum as the water heats. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and stops off-flavours from carrying through the stew.

“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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