Lamb Hearts
- Thread starter theNude
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I think the point is that looking beyond a few years it is you that is buying into the 'craze.
Lol, theirs only one crazy and that's the one you are in. The it's junk/not proper meat. You look at history, non westernised countries, and this junk notion is the crazy/fad.
And yes you have been programmed to think this way and need to break it, as I said you have zero justification for saying this thing. For example, explain why it's junk, you can't.
It is junk to me. I wouldn't ever want to eat any such sort of Offal. That's not me being 'badly programmed', you really are talking out of your starfish. The fact is that it doesn't intrigue me in the slightest and I'd rather go hungry.
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Well reasoned argument there, why is it junk?
Fine you don't want to eat it. But to keep up this stupid notion, is silly. Why do you somehow have to justify your dislike? Why can't you just accept you won't eat it, but in no way can it be considered junk.
And it's not just hunters, go back to ww2 and before and this was normal everyday food.
Have you ever even tried any of it, or even haggis/faggots. Both of which are delicious.
Fine you don't want to eat it. But to keep up this stupid notion, is silly. Why do you somehow have to justify your dislike? Why can't you just accept you won't eat it, but in no way can it be considered junk.
And it's not just hunters, go back to ww2 and before and this was normal everyday food.
Have you ever even tried any of it, or even haggis/faggots. Both of which are delicious.
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have to agree with Glaucus, these cuts of meat and offal are nutritionally sound, full of flavour and thus far far from what can be considered "junk".
Haribo is junk...but still love it hehe.....I think I just blasphemed in the house of OCUK.
rotters
Haribo is junk...but still love it hehe.....I think I just blasphemed in the house of OCUK.
rotters
You tell me, why you can't justify it.
No that's not what I mean at all.
Explain why it's junk, you haven't so far as you can't. There's nothing inheritnelly junk like about it.
Some of us were brought up on offal...and still are. And, in many cultures, it's prized because it's the most tender and flavoursome of meats. Steak is expensive because it's muscle fibre which has been worked more frequently and is therefore tender. But, when you think about it, the heart is working constantly 24 hours a day, which actually makes it more tender and succulent.
Hearts are delicious and there are only two ways to cook them. Either cut into thin strips and then flash-fryed over a very high heat, or loooooong slow braising, which is generally best for lamb. As advised, wash them out in cold water to make sure there are no clots inside the ventricles, and then trim away the excess fat on the outside. Also a good idea to use a pair of scissors to snip away the tubes, especially if you've bought them in a pack. Usually a butcher would have done this properly for you.
Make up your choice of stuffing. Plain sage & onion is fine, or add mushrooms, shallots, garlic to breadcrumbs. Then stuff the ventricles on each heart - there should be two, although you can shove the stuffing into one of the holes until it squeezes out of the other. Chop carrots, onion, mushrooms, leeks and place in a casserole dish, add your stock (red wine or a lamb cube works great) , and then braise for at least 2 hours on a low heat - say 160 C.
One thing to watch is that the hearts don't topple over and lose their stuffing. In the old days, the top of the heart would be stitched closed with thread, but you can use cocktail sticks to close them as best you can. Alternatively, if you've added enough veggies to the casserole, you can use these to keep the hearts wedged upright. Just don't cover them completely with stock as you don't want the stuffing to get too wet and fall out. But you still want the hearts to braise in the liquid, so make sure it goes at least three-quarters of the way up the meat. One further tip - if you haven't trimmed enough fat away from the hearts, you might find a layer shimmering on top of the casserole. So, about an hour into the cooking check for this, and use a spoon to ladle it off. Don't chuck it down the sink else it'll congeal and block...I pour mine into an empty tin can.
It might all seem a bit fiddly at first but, once you've prepped them, you can leave them in the oven to cook merrily away while you go down the pub. Two hours or more later serve a couple of hearts per person with mash and green veg, ladled with the delicious braising stock, and enjoy.
Hearts are delicious and there are only two ways to cook them. Either cut into thin strips and then flash-fryed over a very high heat, or loooooong slow braising, which is generally best for lamb. As advised, wash them out in cold water to make sure there are no clots inside the ventricles, and then trim away the excess fat on the outside. Also a good idea to use a pair of scissors to snip away the tubes, especially if you've bought them in a pack. Usually a butcher would have done this properly for you.
Make up your choice of stuffing. Plain sage & onion is fine, or add mushrooms, shallots, garlic to breadcrumbs. Then stuff the ventricles on each heart - there should be two, although you can shove the stuffing into one of the holes until it squeezes out of the other. Chop carrots, onion, mushrooms, leeks and place in a casserole dish, add your stock (red wine or a lamb cube works great) , and then braise for at least 2 hours on a low heat - say 160 C.
One thing to watch is that the hearts don't topple over and lose their stuffing. In the old days, the top of the heart would be stitched closed with thread, but you can use cocktail sticks to close them as best you can. Alternatively, if you've added enough veggies to the casserole, you can use these to keep the hearts wedged upright. Just don't cover them completely with stock as you don't want the stuffing to get too wet and fall out. But you still want the hearts to braise in the liquid, so make sure it goes at least three-quarters of the way up the meat. One further tip - if you haven't trimmed enough fat away from the hearts, you might find a layer shimmering on top of the casserole. So, about an hour into the cooking check for this, and use a spoon to ladle it off. Don't chuck it down the sink else it'll congeal and block...I pour mine into an empty tin can.
It might all seem a bit fiddly at first but, once you've prepped them, you can leave them in the oven to cook merrily away while you go down the pub. Two hours or more later serve a couple of hearts per person with mash and green veg, ladled with the delicious braising stock, and enjoy.
As a child I remember my dad often having sheeps heart for his evening meal.
There is absolutely nothing modern or trendy about it, it's a good honest tasty part of the animal, that h&s been used for years and years because of these reasons. To call it junk is silly, and pretty narrow minded.
There is absolutely nothing modern or trendy about it, it's a good honest tasty part of the animal, that h&s been used for years and years because of these reasons. To call it junk is silly, and pretty narrow minded.
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I have to agree with this. I first ate heart about 40 years ago and have eaten it regularly since (not so much recently since the butchers around here are rubbish and don't stock it
).To say it's a modern fad is ill-informed and simply wrong.
Ew people eat hearts? Disgusting. Me id only eat normal meat, i never eat organs or such thats just ew..
Also i agree about the fad thing i mean i never grew up as kid eating hearts for dinner just normal steak for sunday dinners. Like all of the other kids. As an adult i still wouldnt go near other "meat" types such as heart, liver, tongue, brains, etc.
Also i agree about the fad thing i mean i never grew up as kid eating hearts for dinner just normal steak for sunday dinners. Like all of the other kids. As an adult i still wouldnt go near other "meat" types such as heart, liver, tongue, brains, etc.
This is incorrect, you'll find it's actually the other way around, think of veal and you'll understand.
Define "normal". You also can't agree that it's a fad because factually, it isn't.
What you grew up with is completely irrelevant. Offal based dishes are not a new fad thing. Go talk to some old people, I bet a load of the regularly had liver and onions at school as kids. Liver and onions is a traditional British dish.
I personally wouldn't touch offal with a bargepole as it doesn't appeal to me as I'm very particular about my meats.
I tend not to touch seafood, meat cooked on the bone (like chicken wings), offal and so on, but I wouldn't call it crap or whinge about other people eating it.
Factually, it's very nutrient rich, it's cheap and some people love it.
It is a normal meat, a very normal meat. And it is in no way a fad, it never has been.
My gran and grandad (my grandad still is) extremely old fashioned in what he eats (he's 90 now so no changing him). Meals back in the late 40s onwards sometimes consisted of more of the animal than we have now. the reason for this was that people simply couldn't afford to pick and choose, and put up with whatever part of the animal they could find.
Heart was a common choice for its price, it's flavour, and texture.
When people say that they have been bought up on very traditional English food, yet say they've never had offal, heart, liver etc, I find it very odd, as these pretty much are the pinnacle of old fashioned traditional English meat.
I think people are put off easily by old fashioned foods in this day in age. Maybe it's because were spoilt for choice. Cuts like heart, liver, oxtail, and even food like herring roe are lovely, tasty parts of
the animal.
I hate liver, no matter how it's cooked - just the taste is too much like licking a rusty metal pole. Kidneys - I can't stop thinking that that's where urine is processed and unlike seafood for example, you don't get to leave the lamb in a tank of water for a few days to rinse it through! And when you cut a raw one open - eurghh, the smell. I know it's sterile but just NO!
Haggis and black pudding on the other hand I adore, I have a venison haggis defrosting at the minute. But how many of you would tuck in to a plate of sheep's lights (lungs, a prime ingredient in haggis) or some nice pork brains?
The last beef heart I bought had a huge big lump in it, and my great-aunt (microbiologist) thought it was really interesting because it was a tumour, so I let her take it away to see if it was benign or cancerous, put me right off it. I know I'm not going to "catch" cancer even eating a cancerous tumour from a cow heart, but it just, well, turned my stomach a bit!
Qhat about "Chitlins"? The large intestine, normally deep fried and apparently delicious, popular in Louisiana and the like because it was "poor people's food" and they grew up to love it - I have a couple of friends down there and they still remember the taste and would love it, but can't get over the smell of Mama cleaning it - basically cleaning all the crap out of it because THAT'S WHAT IS IN IT! I'd probably happily eat them at a restaurant, but people talking anout having to leave the house because Mama has a big sink full of pig crap and water and it really, really stinks - and you're never going to get it all out, are you? Think of all the little villi/pockets in intestines... and it's not even "clean" crap because pigs are fed everything and anything... NO!
Haggis and black pudding on the other hand I adore, I have a venison haggis defrosting at the minute. But how many of you would tuck in to a plate of sheep's lights (lungs, a prime ingredient in haggis) or some nice pork brains?
The last beef heart I bought had a huge big lump in it, and my great-aunt (microbiologist) thought it was really interesting because it was a tumour, so I let her take it away to see if it was benign or cancerous, put me right off it. I know I'm not going to "catch" cancer even eating a cancerous tumour from a cow heart, but it just, well, turned my stomach a bit!
Qhat about "Chitlins"? The large intestine, normally deep fried and apparently delicious, popular in Louisiana and the like because it was "poor people's food" and they grew up to love it - I have a couple of friends down there and they still remember the taste and would love it, but can't get over the smell of Mama cleaning it - basically cleaning all the crap out of it because THAT'S WHAT IS IN IT! I'd probably happily eat them at a restaurant, but people talking anout having to leave the house because Mama has a big sink full of pig crap and water and it really, really stinks - and you're never going to get it all out, are you? Think of all the little villi/pockets in intestines... and it's not even "clean" crap because pigs are fed everything and anything... NO!
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You never ever eat salami or chorizo then?
Can't believe peeps are trying to suggest offal is a gastro fad, you couldn't be any farther from the truth. People didn't used to be able to afford the decent cuts, so were left with the shanks, scrag ends and offal. It is a time honoured tradition the world over, not just here.
If you don't like it, fine. But trying to sit on a high horse suggesting it's some pompous unnecessary food is very naieve.
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I don't like offal, but that's just personal choice - criticizing somebody based on their personal choice over something like this is pretentious. In the same way, calling them "junk cuts" is dumb and uninformed. Tried it, don't like it but that's me. I don't see how people can call it junk though. It's eaten all over the world and most cultures prize it and some of the dishes that high-end chefs create look spectacular. Granted I think there are some bits that are pushing it but Sweet Breads, Kidney, Liver, Heart... these are all basics that should be eaten normally (if you like them)
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I love offal. About the only thing I've eaten so far that I wasn't too keen on was lights (lungs). Tasted OK but I really wasn't keen on the texture. My cat loved it though so it worked out good. I got the liver, kidneys and heart and he got the lights 
If you don't want to eat organ meat then don't, but calling the vital organs of a previously living creature 'rubbish food' just makes you look ignorant.
It's well known that organ meats have higher levels of nutrients when compared to other cuts including coQ10 and vitamin B12, it's a total waste to raise an animal purely for it's skeletal muscle and discard the rest, everything should be eaten! Organ meat is delicious when properly prepared and very, very nutritous, considering it to be 'rubbish food' is about as far off the mark as one can get!
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