OK, I'll be honest, I was a little grossed out as well as I walked away from the butchers' with a bag that looked like it contained a human head, I'm not sure why, but I thought that a cow's heart would be a lot smaller...
Anyone still reading?I've had lamb's heart before, I love the iron rich taste and the thick chewy texture. Calm down, breathe, and keep telling yourself that.
This recipe is very simple, you just leave the heart to slow cook in a pan for 2 hours and then cut into slices, reduce the sauce a little, and serve with croutons. The recipe actually calls for 2 hearts, but they must be cracked. First, I don't have a dish big enough for that kind of crazy good time, and second, this fricking thing cost the same as a real piece of meat would have. By that I mean like a free range chicken or a loin of pork or something that I wouldn't have to spend the next week eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner by myself. I'm not a fricking millionaire!
So, I gently fry the onions in the beautiful baby blue Le Creuset casserole that the boyfriend gave me for Christmas (it's a sign of how much he knows and loves me. I gave him clothes, that's a sign that I think he dresses really bad. Duh). The here's a picture of the big ugly heart filling up the entire pot while I brown it. There's a sinister stab wound on one side, maybe this cow was murdered! Don't look at too much though because it actually looks pretty vulgar. Don't say what you're thinking, perverts!
I pour in the beef stock and wine, which comes about a third of the way up the heart, and close the lid. The book doesn't tell you that you're meant to turn the heart over in this pool of brown liquid, but I'm going to take that as a given, since the last thing I want is to undercook the bastard!Result: OK, in the interest of full disclosure, I was really hungover when making this. The following comments are not necessarily very complimentary of what is a passable dish, you might be thinking, why did you even make this, if you find it so repulsive? And my only excuse is that I was feeling a little delicate. I mean, one minute I was feeling fine, over at my friend's house, living it up with a few glasses of Cava, then trying to sleep on her couch which is the size of a coffee table, and the next morning I was afflicted with a mysterious illness... I kept getting waves of nausea every time I lifted the lid and the smell hit me. They boyfriend was milling around making unhelpful comments like 'You know the butcher was laughing at you, right? If you hadn't have bought it, it would have ended up in the dog food factory. That's what this dish you're making is, pet food. Not people food. Aren't you cute? I hope you know I'm not eating it'. And I almost lost it when I finally had to slice it and it turned out to be 'crunchy' on the inside! The walls were thick and meaty, I tried a little piece and it tasted just like overcooked steak - might be nice in a sandwich, but once you get to the middle, the bloody offal smell intensifies and it gets a little creepy. The only way I can try and describe it is that it feels a little like what I assume men experience when they see some guy on tv getting kicked in the balls. They cringe and instinctively try and protect that area. Well my hands started shaking a little and I imagined somebody slicing and dicing up my own heart. I finished the gruesome job - God, I would be the worst serial killer ever - plopped the little pieces back in the sauce, and was really thankfull when I could turn off the heat and forget about it completely for the rest of the night. My appetite didn't exactly return on the following morning. I went down the stairs fully intent on making up a little lunch box to take to work, but the sight of the gray meat, surrounded now by globs of yellow fat that had hardened overnight sent me reeling and I ran out of the door with a piece of toast instead.
I'm determined to see this through though. Forget about the social commentary on the origins of meat and all the PETA protestations that animals are our friends, when did I become so squeamish? If it's the last thing I ever do, I will prove the boyfriend wrong. Maybe.
