Heart is an excellent muscle to eat: it’s lean and flavorful (meaty but not organy—it’s a hard working muscle, not squishy spleen), it’s got a good bite, and it’s inexpensive And one more thing: it puts to use a cut that is often thrown away; it’s important that we do our best to make use of all parts of the animals we kill for our food.o prepare the heart for cooking, cut away all the fat, any obviously squishy tissue, connective tissue, valves, papillary muscles and tendineae attached to the valve flaps; it should be obvious by sight what’s good to eat and what’s not. You want clean dense muscle only; you’ll have a lot of trim—don’t make yourself too crazy trying to get every last bit. Cook and consume offal within one or two days of purchasing.
Braised Hearts http://www.cookitsimply.com/recipe-0010-01592y4.html
ingredients
serves 8
1.5 kg (3 lb) ox heart
75 g (3 oz) rindless streaky bacon
1 onion
2 tablespoons oil
450 ml (3/4 pint) meat stock
salt and freshly milled black pepper
1 tablespoon paprika
generous pinch of cayenne
1 bay leaf
225 g (8 oz) carrots
225 g (8 oz) leeks
225 g (8 oz) celery
225 g (8 oz) celeriac
4 tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato puree
1 tablespoon cornflour
150 ml (1/4 pint) single cream
method
1. Cut any fat off the hearts and soak them in cold water to remove any blood. Then cut the hearts in half and remove arteries and fat.
2. Cut the bacon into strips 5 mm (1/4 in) wide and use to spike the hearts.
3. Dice the onion.
4. Fry the onion and hearts in the oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan until the meat is browned all over. Add the stock, salt and pepper to taste and the paprika, cayenne and bay leaf. Cover the pan and braise the hearts for 1 1/2 hours.
5. Scrape the carrots and quarter them lengthways. Slice the leek and celery. Peel and coarsely dice the celeriac.
6. Add the prepared vegetables to the pan 25 minutes before the end of the cooking time. Wash the tomatoes, cut into wedges and cook them with the hearts for the last 10 minutes of the cooking time.
8. Thicken the sauce with the tomato puree and the cornflour dissolved in a little cold water. Bring to the boil once and stir in the cream.
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Spiced Ox Heart http://www.cookitsimply.com/recipe-0010-011o49.html
ingredients
serves 6
1 kg (2 lb) ox heart, hard parts and sinews removed, cut into cubes
1 tbsp cooking oil
3 tbsp (1 1/2 oz) 40 g butter
2 large onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
375 ml (12 fl oz) meat stock
2 bay leaves or lemon leaves
3 whole cloves
1/2 tsp each Mixed Spice (All Spice / Pumpkin pie spice) and grated nutmeg
2 tbsp lemon juice
4 tbsp plain flour
method
1. Brown meat in heated cooking oil and butter in a heavy-based saucepan.
2. Add onion and garlic and saute until onion is translucent. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Heat meat stock and add to meat together with remaining ingredients except lemon juice and flour.
4. Cover with lid, reduce heat and simmer for 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until meat is tender.
5. Remove bay leaves or lemon leaves and stir in lemon juice.
6. Thicken sauce with a flour and water paste.