Got my B12 for the day.

[hannah]

Tonight, I cooked a heart. I've had a three-pound cow heart in my freezer for an embarrassingly large number of months, and kept promising myself I'd get a big enough pot for it eventually, at some point, and finally cooking. And tonight I finally knuckled down, made the arrangements, and cooked it at my parents' place for myself and my brother while they're out of town and we needed to entertain ourselves.

Three pounds of solid muscle, cooked in the fat I trimmed off of the organ itself, slowly simmered into a rich, filling Hungarian goulash. Texture-wise, cardiac tissue can't and won't match skeletal muscles, and I didn't expect it to. Taste-wise, it went beyond what I'd thought to hope for - a deep, fulfilling flavor, bright and intense beef. Like the best stew meat, only ever so much more so.

Organ meats aren't gross, icky, or any other similar adjective; they're just not always treated well to flatter their capabilities. And they can be hard to track down; I got my heart by showing up early enough at the market that day. It's a bit of a shame that they're not eaten more. It helps remind me meat really does come from animals, and should be treated with care and respect - it's a lot easier to dissociate from a steak than it is from the guts. Which is probably why more people don't eat them, really.

That, and when I diced it up, it smelled kind of like eighth-grade science class.

Comments

[kass]

Sounds glorious. Holy wow.

ellen_fremedon has posted about cooking beef heart, I believe, and her post made me want to find one and cook it, too.

[hannah]

Trust me, it was. You should've smelled it when everything started bubbling up. We had it on top of steamed broccoli, and the texture and color contrasts played up beautifully.

Do you live near a butcher or farmer's market that carries beef? I got the heart from a local farmer's market, so that might work for you, too.

[shayheyred]

Growing up, my grandmother made tongue when she visited, and I remember the giant whole tongue on the kitchen counter. She also made chicken soup with the feet of the chicken (always my favorite part of the soup), chopped liver and stuffed derma, which I believe is some part of an animal stuffed with grain. We also fought over the gizzard of the chicken.

But as I got older I got squeamish about tongue, though I happily still eat chicken liver and the gizzard. I have not, however, ever eaten a chicken heart, let alone a cow heart, nor brains, nor sweetbreads, and though I've had steak and kidney pie, I usually avoided the kidney bits. Funny how I'll eat some organs and not others!

[hannah]

I have four chicken feet in my freezer, waiting for me to get a pot big enough to make meat-based stock. I hope it's soon.

A friend of mine will eat just about all organs except kidneys because he can't ever get out the smell of piss. So no, not that funny, really. More sensible.

[mizz_destiny]

I love beef heart stew. It so different from anything else!

Personally, I am very lucky in where my organ meat comes from. My parents have a farm, so I get plenty of heart, liver, and tongue (although I'm not a fan of tongue) because most people don't want it!

[hannah]

I have a tongue I want to simmer slowly for an afternoon, then slice up nice and thin on a good white bread with some mustard and maybe garlic paste. Mmmm, thinly sliced tongue.

[mizz_destiny]

I know I said I don't like it, BUT THAT SOUNDS REALLY GOOD :D

[hannah]

When I bought it, the woman who sold it to me said the proper way to cook tongue is "low and slow." There are a couple of tongue recipes here that go for that approach, and serving it sliced thin with angry mustard is a standard at most Jewish delis.