I havent had it for a while (since I was a kid) and I remember my Dad cutting horizontal cross sections, like a bell pepper, and pan frying it with butter and onions.
I could only find this video about cleaning beef hearts and he cleans it the opposite way.
Butter and onions is awesome, I also add mushrooms too. Another way is to cook in a crock pot with lipton onion soup mix, I put it on low before I go to work then let it cool when I get home and put it in the fridge, then in the morning I slice it like roast beef and put it on a hoagie with swiss cheese and some horseradish mustard and lettuce!!! Best sandwich you will ever eat!
After I clean it, I cut it into strips, coat it in seasoned flour(sometimes use egg before), and cook it in bacon grease. I top it off with parmesan cheese and parsley. I haven't had a complaint yet, and I've converted a lot of people who said they didn't like organ meat. It's amazing how many people just leave it on the gut pile.
Having one for lunch tomorrow!!!! You won't be disappointed!! I use the rotella's brand hoagies!! Sometimes I slice the bread and put a thin layer of butter on them and put them on a hot skillet to slightly toast them. My hunting partners get a kick out of me going for the deer hearts on any kill, I'm like a kid in a candy store.
I've got a friend that makes pickled deer heart and it's delicious. He starts by boiling the heart whole. Then cleans and slices into bite size pieces. Next he makes a pickling brine with vinegar, garlic, onions, and spices. He then boils the heart pieces and other ingredients together in the vinegar for just a few minutes, then puts it in canning jars and stores it in the fridge. Very tasty stuff
To cook a deer heart. On the day of the kill, when gutting the deer, remove the heart with pericardium, the sac that surrounds the heart. Store heart in plastic bag and keep cool. At home or the cooking destination remove heart from its the sac and flush and rinse with cold water. Place the heart in a bowl and cover with cold water. Add a couple tablespoons of vinegar and then soak the heart overnight in the refrigerator. The next morning or afternoon, remove heart from vinegar bath and rinse in with cold water. Heat a medium skillet and sauté one large onion in a table spoon of butter until the onion has caramelized. While the onion is cooking, slice the heart horizontally into ¾ inch strip cross sections and then into strips. Dip strips into beaten egg and then dredge the heart strips into flour seasoned to your tastes, I use just pepper, but this is my preference in that I enjoy the rich taste of the heart. Remove onion from skillet and set aside. Heat several table spoons of bacon fat until it is sizzling hot. Flash fry the floured venison heart strips until done to your desire. Remove heart strips from bacon fat and drain on paper towel or paper bag. Transfer heart strips to a serving platter and cover with the caramelized onions and enjoy.
I have never kept a heart before, and I've said for years that I was going to try it someday. My son and I plan to shoot a doe or two with a rifle in January, so I hearby pledge to keep the heart and give it a try. At the very least, my 10 year old boy will think it's cool. 8^)
Do you do anything special to clean the blood out of it first? I often marinate venison in milk or buttermilk, seems to pull the blood out and kill any the iron/blood taste to me. I suppose I'd do the same with the heart...
HuntinHabit, Sometimes the blood does coagulate in the heart but if you rinse it under water it will easily rinse off. You will be able to see what you need to cut off once you have it at home while cleaning it up. Don't hesitate to pm me if you need any tips when doing this and I will gladly help out. I hope you and your boy enjoy it!!!
cut into small pieces,clean well,marinate in Moore's sauce for about 2 hours,coat lightly with McCormick Montreal spicy steak seasoning.Then butter a pan,heat to a medium high heat and pan fry (I usually add a little more butter as I'm cooking)until medium or medium rare....Wish I had one for lunch tomorrow,dangit
Sounds like no ones' had it like my mom used to cook it. My lady cooked it like this a few times and was absolutly terrific. Simply dig out the inside, stuff it with stove top stuffing and roast it. Slice like a pepper when done and pour a gravy over it. You'll keep every heart you can get your hands on after that.
We NEVER leave the heart for the coyotes. Usually eaten that evening. It has become a tradition of sorts with my sons.
Rinse it well. Stuff it full of slices of jalapeno. Boil it in a small pan (barely cover the heart) with onions, garlic, black pepper and jalapeno juice added to the water for about 30-40 minutes.
Remove and let cool for 10 minutes and sklice it thin. We eat it as an appetizer. Also very good as a sandwhich.
Deer hearts one of the best parts of the deer! I just chunck it up put in boiling water with salt,pepper,onions,and a little garlic.Cook it for about a half hour or so and mmmmmm.
use your best pepper-steak recipie, or trim well, boil em up whole, cut into bite-size chunks, and put in a glass jar with the following pickling solution:
1 cup cider-vinegar, a tsp kosher (or rock) salt, 1 large garlic clove, 1 bay leaf, and a sprig of fresh dill or 1 tsp dill seed
refrigerate at least 8-12 hours or up to a week, and serve as hors d'ouvres on a cold party-tray on crackers, with smoked salmon, kippers, or smoked oysters and assorted cheeses....
or, wash and trim , soak overnight in lightly salted water, simmer on low heat in pot with just water to cover, stuff with "Stovetop" stuffing, wrap in foil and bake 325 degree oven 45 minutes, slice and serve hot
Wife likes it better sliced horizontally and pounded , then pan fried like tenderloins, and used in a sandwich.
Either way, anyone who leaves it behind is missing the best chunk of meat on the whole critter.
Now, liver and kidneys don't come home with me. Liver used to, but I never liked it much, and didn't need much excuse to leave it. Never tried kidneys, but they and the liver function too much like filters for me to trust them completely. The heart is just a great chunk of tasty muscle shaped into a pump.
1 lb. Liver & Heart cooked (I smoke them or you can grill them) Puree' in food processor
2) 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese
1/4 cup chopped dill pickles (fine)
1/3 cup chopped onion (fine)
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 drops Tabasco sauce
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 Tbsp. pickle juice
I add just one pkg. of cream cheese to start. Add more according to taste. I also add chopped garlic to taste. You can add more or less of all ingredients to taste. Adding more pickle & pickle juice seems to mellow the liver taste. You can mix this by hand for a more colorful presentation or cream it together in food processor. I use processor it's faster.
My family & friends are all saving thier hearts & livers now! :)
I never can figure the "organ meat is not healthy", "I don't eat pumps and filters" , and etc. I have never had anyone show any real scientific evidence of deleterious effects of an occasional meal of liver, kidney, heart, etc. What are the issues?
You can even make nice decorative designs on them to enhance the presentation on the dinner plate. 8^) My buddy gobbled this one up right away. I've never eaten heart before, but am going to give it a try with some of the above cooking tips.
The heart is not like a liver which filters the blood and can store contaminants like heavy metals. It is simply another muscle that pushes blood through the body. Eating a heart is just like eating any other muscle tissue on the deer.
I usually leave all the organs, figure the other critters out there need to eat. But after reading this thread, if I get lucky enough to put one down today or tomorrow, that heart is going in the pan!
have a recipie here somewhere, (I'll try to find it later) where you start a slice on the edge of the heart and make one continuous cut and unroll the heart as you slice. kind of like a swiss cake roll. then you put a layer of bacon on it and roll it back up. tie it with butchers string, season it, and cook it like a roast.
I'll try to find the recipie tonight and post the cooking temps and seasonings.
Heart is my kids favorite part of the animal. I like to boil it in a pressure cooker for about an hour. Slice it thin, sprinkle some salt on top and enjoy.
I also like to pan fry it but its not as tender as when you pressure cook it.
Most of what I've done with the heart is covered here except - you can also gring it and make a Great Buger with onion, tomato, cheese etc. Almost all my buddies give me the heart from their deer.
when you get home, rinse the heart under cold tap water, kneading it so that the clots will work their way out. slice it thin, coat the pieces in seasoned flour and fry in a pan with oil. I love the fried heart dipped in ranch dressing, usually for breakfast with hashbrowns and eggs. MMMMMM nothing better. enjoy. Its a real disappointment when the heart turns out to be unsalvageable.
Kelly, yeah, technically muscle is considered an organ, skin is too.
But in this context "organ" is understod to mean "internal organ". (ie: internal to the body-cavity) In that context, the heart is both a muscle, and an organ.
It is also an edible portion of the animal. But then, the bone marrow (another organ) , the brain (organ) tongue (yep, also an organ!)is also an edible portion.
Though I eat squirrel tongue and brains and pork tongue and brains, and beef tongues, for some reason I never bother with deer or beef brains, and though I save beef, pork, and deer livers, I never save squirrel livers.
I save pork kidneys, and ears, for scrapple, but not from other large critters. I eat pigs feet, and tails but not beef "ox" tails (or feet).
Chalk it up to habit I guess.
My dad remembers my granny cooking up ckicken feet, and says they were good.
There was a time during my college internship where I lived off chicken necks and rice (when the deer, fish, muskrat, and squirrel ran out and I couldn't get a shot at a groundhog); bottom line is, if you are an "obligate carnivore" you WILL find comestible protein.
Nomad, I'd be trying your pate recipe right now if I wasn't out of cream cheese. If I wasn't snowed in, I'd be on my way to the store. That sounds delicious!
the tounge is good also. The lungs are not so bad but they can be blah tasting. We use the lungs just like doing up a funnel cake. The poblem I have is I always have pass throughs and the lungs are like butter.
Just kidding on the tounge and lungs.
My next doe kill i too am going to save the heart and use the recipes above. They all sound very good. Besides why should the Coyotes get the heart.
My favorite heart recipe, by memory from the wild game cookbook from "The Complete Hunter" series. Rolled heart roast: Trim fat and arteries from surface. Starting at the septum between left (thick-walled) and right (thin-walled) ventricles, slice tangentially along left ventricle, 1/2 of its thickness, and when you get around to septum on other side, go through the middle of it, giving you a 12 inch long, 3-4 inch wide strip of muscle, composed of 1/2 thickness of left ventricle and full thickness of right ventricle. Trim away any white stuff (valves and aorta). Dust this with flour with a little salt and pepper mixed in, then brown it briefly in bacon grease. Let it cool for a few minutes, the place 2 or 3 strips uncooked bacon on the strip of heart, roll it up, and tie around it in two places with string. Bake on a rack in baking pan at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes. Slice and serve. Very tender, moist, and flavorful. The only tricky part is slicing the heart into a strip.
We never freeze the hearts.It is tradition that we eat the heart and tenderloin the evening after we kill a deer. Slice the heart thin and flash fry it in butter or bacon greece. DONT OVERCOOK it. I have never had anyone that ate it cooked like this that ever left a heart in the woods again.
dinner last evening...deer heart sliced thin, sauteed in olive oil and seasoned with garlic and rosemary, and a dash of red wine, french bread toasted with garlic and dairy butter, and a baby-spinach caesar salad with real bits of anchovy, grated parmesan, roma tomato slices, and diced avacado
We clean to hearts really well, let soak in salt water over night to draw out blood. The next day boil hearts at a slow boil for 2 hours, remove, dice into 1/2" x 1/2" pieces, then saute in onions/butter, salt/pepper to taste, for another 1/2 hours at low heat. Becomes very tender and has awesome flavor.
