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Baked Heart Fricassee

A baked fricassee of veal hearts, salt pork, onion, and potatoes simmered in water and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Heart Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hearts

  1. Soak the hearts in mild salted cold water until all blood is drawn from them, then cut them into pieces the size of hickory nuts, removing any tough parts.

Make the fricassee

  1. Place the hearts, butter, and diced salt pork in a skillet and allow to simmer and brown, keeping the skillet uncovered.

  2. When browned, add the chopped onion and 2 cups of boiling water, cover, and simmer until the onion is tender.

  3. Mix the flour, salt, and pepper together and add to the mixture, ensuring it doesn't lump, then add the remaining 2 cups of boiling water.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour everything into a baking dish and spread the chopped potatoes over the top.

  2. Bake until the potatoes are tender. Serve 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. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  2. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they 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

Veal hearts
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow simmering and baking.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the hearts and enriches the flavour of the sauce.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour as it renders and browns in the skillet.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, lightly body-rich sauce.
Potatoes
Form a starchy layer on top that softens and absorbs moisture as it bakes.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Flour must be mixed in evenly so it does not form lumps. Lumps stay dry inside the liquid and are hard to smooth out later, so the sauce turns uneven.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, pork, onion, walnut, flour, pepper):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, pork, onion, walnut, flour, 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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