In our part of the country you can't buy pig hearts (or calf or beef, for that matter) anymore. The slaughter houses toss them with the rest of the waste from the animal.
However, when we were young Mom used to fix pig hearts for us regularly and I really learned to like them. In later years I found some occsionally and prepared them. Usually I was the oly one that liked them. Now they are really hard to find unless you go directly to a slaughter house and ask to have them saved for you, which we have done. So tomorrow we pick up about fifteeen frozen pig hearts from a slaughter house in a nearby town.
My question has to do with preparing them. I can't remember exactly how Mom did it or how I have done it before. I'd be "much obliged" if anyond else has had them or knows how to prepare them.
The exact question is do you boil them before frying or just cut them up raw in small pieces and fry directly? If you like thick hamburger gravy over bread or potatoes, you might like these fixed in the same general way. I love it.
Well, let me know if you have had them before or if you have an opinion about boiling or frying first.
5 comments:
I have a 1 million recipe CD and looked up heart. Here is what I found:
2 heaping c. of patience
1 heart full of love
1 head full of understanding
2 handfuls of generosity
Dash of laughter
Sprinkle generously with kindness. Add plenty of faith. Mix well. Spread over a period of a lifetime and serve everybody you meet.
It sounds like it was written just for you 2.
Here is a recipe in which they boil the heart first. How much would depend on how tender you wanted it. If you just want it fried, you could forget about the rest of the recipe.
1-2 lb. boiled heart (thin sliced)
3/4 c. flour
Salt & pepper
2 garlic cloves, diced
1 tsp. thyme
1 tbsp. vinegar
1/2 c. water
1 lb. fresh mushrooms
Brown meat in oil. Shake meat slices in bag with flour, salt and pepper. Put meat in pan. Add garlic, thyme, vinegar and 1/2 cup water. Simmer, stirring often. Cover. Add water as needed. Cook until tender. Add mushrooms in the last 15 minutes. Serve over cooked rice, toast, potatoes or noodles.
OK, now my own memories. My father told me that on Sunday it was common to have heart at the old house. Our Grandfather was in charge of watching the heart cook on the stove while Grandma and the kids were in church.
My father I believe just sliced it and fried it. He never cared much about how tough the meat was. He also one time put 2 beef hearts on the rotissarie on the BBQ grill.
I tried fixing beef tongue at home once and was threatened with mayhem if I ever tried that again. I don't have the guts to try cooking heart. I prefer to remain alive and married.
I did not know you could not find beef heart at the store anymore. I've never seen or had pig heart before. I would have thought heart was plentiful in the south. Shows what I know.
I fixed some venison heart there at the reunion, did you get any? We like it a number of ways.
Dipped in a milk and wash and then breaded in a coarse cornmeal with a little brown sugar and lemon pepper and then fried is excellent with some sweet vidalia onions. I like it best best fried in butter.
If you wash the meat real well and then cut it into thin strips you can put it into casseroles, noodles, chili, etc. sometimes we precook it, other times we just through it in.
It also makes a great addition to steak meat in dishes like stroganoff.
No, Steve, I didn't get any heart--that I know of. What I had were finely sliced venison pieces. They may have been heart. They were good.
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