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A Good Way to Dress a Midcalf

A stuffed calf's heart served with liver, bacon, and a savory sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,039 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the heart

  1. Stuff the calf's heart with forced meat, cover with butter, and dredge with flour.

  2. Place in an earthen dish with a little water and bake at 350°F (175°C).

Make the sauce

  1. Boil half the liver and all the offal together for 30 minutes, then chop finely.

  2. In a pan, combine the chopped liver and offal with gravy, lemon pickle, catsup, lemon juice, pepper, and salt.

  3. Thicken the mixture with butter rolled in flour.

Serve

  1. To serve, pour the minced meat into a dish, place the fried liver slices and bacon on top, and set the heart in the center.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Meat + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Meat + livertop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together332 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Calf's heart
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole so it stays moist and tender inside.
Forced meat
Stuffing that fills the heart and adds richness and moisture as it cooks.
Butter
Enriches the coating and, rolled with flour, thickens the sauce and adds richness.
Flour
Dredged over the butter and used to thicken the sauce, giving body and a light browning.
Liver
Provides the rich, savoury flavour of the minced sauce and the fried slices served on top.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with butter rolled in flour. Adding the flour-butter mixture to hot liquid without enough stirring can form lumps, so it should be whisked in gradually while the sauce simmers to become smooth and evenly thickened.

“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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