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Stuffing for Heart

A roasted heart stuffed with bread crumbs, suet, egg, parsley, pepper, and salt, served with liver and bacon hash.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Stuffing for 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 and dry the heart.

  2. Stuff the heart with a mixture of bread crumbs, suet, egg, parsley, pepper, and salt, then sew it up.

  3. Roast the heart at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 45 minutes, depending on size.

Make the hash

  1. Parboil the lights and half the liver, then mince them finely.

  2. Stew the minced lights and liver in a little of the boiling liquid with a chopped onion, pepper, salt, ketchup, and a little flour for 30 minutes.

  3. Slice the remaining liver, toss in flour, and fry with slices of bacon.

Serve

  1. Place the roasted heart in the center of a hot dish, surround it with the hash, and garnish with alternating slices of liver and bacon.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 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

Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the stuffing so it holds its shape while roasting.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich as it roasts.
Egg
Binds the stuffing together and helps it set during roasting.
Liver (in the method)
Provides a rich, savory meat base for the hash and garnish.
Flour (in the method)
Coats the liver and thickens the stewing liquid for the hash.

The step that matters

Roast the stuffed heart for the right time. Heart is dense and the stuffing is packed inside, so the time depends on size. Roasting too briefly leaves the centre underdone, while overlong roasting dries the meat and stuffing.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, pepper. 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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