The other day my son, Buck, called me and said he was making a beef heart for supper and did I think my blog readers would like a recipe. I said I don’t know but if you want to send me pictures, I’ll post the recipe.
Buck writes”
“So, while I absolutely don’t claim to be a chef of any kind, I do enjoy cooking and butchering. Every time I take something to the locker, get a quarter from a neighbor, etc. I always tell them to “grind the end cuts, prime only.” I can honestly say I’ve never ordered a steak from a restaurant because I don’t know the pickiness of the butcher. This sounds very hoyty-toyty, or tunie, or stuck up (depending on your region of the US), but I like what I like. It hasn’t been super easy cooking in a half-built house but after 3 weeks of ham sandwiches and 2 weeks of pork hock soup, I needed a change. The first thing in the freezer was beef heart. I’m not a big organ (tongue gizzards liver etc) guy but I love heart.
Here’s how I made it.
First, remove all silverskin and any connective tissue you can find, then slice the long way into about 3/8-1/2″ steaks.
For steak seasoning, I’ve been using …All Purpose Back-Yard. You can find it HERE.
It’s lower sodium than most but it still has all the flavor. My only complaint was that it says its Midwest based but doesn’t tell me where in the Midwest.
I made bacon and asparagus in this pan as a side and left the grease so this worked well.
If not, you will need a heavily greased pan. Cook until it starts to curl/4-5 minutes per side.
There you have it bacon asparagus and heart steaks.
YUM. It was just the change I needed…not a ham sandwich and not ham hock soup! It was so good.”
So readers, do you eat organ meat? Do you not? What’s your favorite recipe? We’d love to know. My husband loved organ meat. His favorite beef heart recipe was for me to cook it in the Instant Pot and then grind it. Then I would add mayo, mustard, and the like to make a sandwich spread.
It’s always curious to me how each family is different and has different traditions.
My mother-in-law used to fix deer hearts the way you describe it Jo. It had kind of a pate texture we ate it on crackers, and it was good. She left us the recipe (Dear Heart Salad), and I’d make it if there was a big demand. (For now I’m “laying low”!) haha
My mom would season and bake the beef heart. Then slice and serve hot like roast beef. The leftovers were sliced for cold beef sandwiches. The meat is so tender and flavorful. Liver was the only other organ meat we ate. In a college home ec class the Nebraska Cowbells brought in organ dishes. I had kidney pie, not a fan and brain casserole, not a fan.
I grew up eating organ meat, beef heart, liver, tongue and brains. My mother cooked the heart in water with a bay leaf and then sliced it for sandwiches. We had to top it with mustard. My family now doesn’t eat organ meat, so it is a rare occasion when I eat it now.
In my family, we eat some of them. My husband liked liver and I like gizzards. In the past, I would make a chicken gizzard and Andjouie sausage gumbo. Other people in the family would cook some of the more exotic “innards”, but I am not quite that adventurous.
I don’t eat organ meat. Way too much pathophysiology in my education.
In our area it is often pickled. I have eaten it and it was enjoyable but not something I would make myself. I’ve been listening to some podcasts about WWII cooking and they really encouraged organ meats.
Mom would cook liver and onions and Dad loved it. And, fried chicken livers were a treat. The bag of organs in the turkey or chicken always went into the broth for basting the turkey.
I still like to cook chicken livers, but they are hard to find. So, I eat liver sausage, but the urge seems to hit me occasionally. It is almost like my body is telling me I need more iron or something.
I’ve never tasted beef heart but my Mom made the best beef liver. She’d fry it and make milk gravy. We all loved it
We ate liver and tongue growing up, and loved it. I’ll bet it’s been 40 years since I’ve eaten it!
At my mom’s house nothing went to waste. When someone gave her a beef heart or any other kind of meat she would fix it. Beef heart was the best. I haven’t had it since I left home 59 years ago.
My mom used to make a beef heart in the pressure cooker. She would stuff it with a little sage stuffing and it was lovely. We lived in Alaska in the 1950s and they would order a quarter or half of beef and have it packaged and shipped up frozen. So we did not have a lot of beef heart but it was memorable.
We ate liver and chicken gizzards etc but no heart. I remember mom cooking brains and a bar in St Louis cooked brain sandwiches which my late husband loved. I’m strictly a city girl and the thought of eating all this just isn’t my thing. I do enjoy Bucks cooking though.
My mother would occasionally make fried liver that she cut in strips, dredged in flour and fried. It was disgusting and needed to be drowned in ketchup to even get down. Needless to say, I have never fixed it. Organ meat is just not something I ever eat or cook. I’m down to dissect any part of the deer my husband gets every year, but it won’t make it into my kitchen. It is left for the scavengers when he field dresses the deer.
My mom too would bake beef heart with sage stuffing. I recall it was very good. I love liver and onions but in the past few years even calves liver has been too “gamey”. Fried chicken gizzards are a favorite too.
There was a cafe in my hometown in MO that was famous for serving brain sandwiches. They were tasty- wish I had one now!
My husband likes all the organ meat and I get to figure out how to cook it for him. Thank you for this recipe because I have a couple hearts and other organs to make and had no clue what I was going to do.
Smoked cow tongue. Was in the rotation for school sandwiches. My classmates thought is was expensive roast beef. ;) For the lady who can’t find the liver, chicken livers are often found in 1 pound containers in the freezer case in the meat department. I took me awhile to figure that out! haha, apparently people don’t make liver pate anymore…