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Ilvsiied Ox Heart

Sliced ox heart simmered in vinegar, brown sugar, and gravy or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion 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 ↓

Ilvsiied Ox Heart

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the heart

  1. Cut the heart into slices ¼ inch thick.

  2. Sprinkle both sides with pepper, salt, and dried flour.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the onion, brown sugar, and vinegar.

  2. Dissolve the sugar, then add the gravy or water.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the heart to the pan and shake it.

  2. Simmer gently over low heat for 20 minutes.

  3. Serve very hot.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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, becoming tender with gentle simmering.
Dried flour
Coats the slices and thickens the liquid as it simmers.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the sauce.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds depth of sweetness.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the sauce as it cooks.

The step that matters

Simmer gently over low heat. Ox heart is a tough muscle meat. Gentle, low heat over a sustained period breaks down its connective tissue slowly, while a rolling boil would toughen and dry the surface.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, sugar, vinegar. 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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