Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Beast's Heart Larded
Ingredients
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
Stuff the heart as desired and lard it with small bits of bacon.
Dust the heart with flour and cover it with paper to prevent drying.
Bake and serve
Bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.
Place the baked heart on a serving dish.
Remove excess fat and strain the gravy through a fine sieve.
In a saucepan, combine the strained gravy with red wine, browning sauce, lemon pickle, morels, and chopped anchovy.
Heat the sauce and pour it over the heart before serving.
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.
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Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Lemon + anchovytop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,080 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
-
Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,078 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Flour + anchovytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,753 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beast's heart
- Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and moist as it cooks through.
- Bacon
- Larding fat melts into the lean heart, adding moisture and savory richness during baking.
- Morels
- Contribute an earthy, meaty aroma and flavor to the sauce.
- Red wine
- Adds acidity and depth to the gravy, balancing its richness.
- Browning sauce
- Deepens the color and adds a robust, savory flavor to the gravy.
The step that matters
Dust the heart with flour and cover it with paper to prevent drying.. A lean heart can dry out in the oven. Flour helps form a protective crust, and the paper shields the surface from direct heat, keeping the meat moist.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, red wine, sauce, anchovy):
- Plumfits better
- Lemonthe original
- Raisinfits about as well
- Grapefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, red wine, sauce, anchovy. 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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