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Heart, Bullock's, Stewed
Prepare a heart as in the last recipe. Soak it in vinegar and water, fill it with hare forcemeat, and put it in a saucepan, the broad end uppermost, and with it a sliced turnip and carrot, an onion stuck with four cloves, half a tea-spoonful of bruised celery-seed, tied in muslin, two tea-spoonfuls of salt, one tea-spoonful of moist sugar, and a quarter of a tea-spoonful of cayenne. Pour over the heart a pint of good stock, or, failing this, water, and half a pint of beer. Cover the pan closely, and when the liquid has once boiled, draw it a little to the side, and simmer gently for five hours. Send the gravy in which it was stewed to table with it. Probable cost of heart, 2s. 6d. Sufficient for six or seven persons.
A whole braised beef heart, stuffed and simmered for the better part of an afternoon. It is straightforward cooking, but the recipe leans on a preceding entry and on a few Victorian shorthand terms.
- "Prepare a heart as in the last recipe"The referenced entry is not reproduced here, but standard Victorian preparation was to open the chambers, rinse out clotted blood in several changes of cold water, and cut away the tough arteries, valves and hard white gristle at the top, trimming most of the outer fat cap. A bullock's heart typically weighs several pounds; a supermarket beef heart is the same thing and usually needs ordering from a butcher.
- The soak is not optionalThe soak -- Vinegar and water (a splash of vinegar in a bowl of cold water) is the traditional means of drawing residual blood out of the muscle and softening the iron-heavy flavour. An hour or two in the fridge is generally enough.
- Hare forcemeatA stuffing of minced hare with fat bacon, breadcrumbs, herbs and egg to bind. Hare is a special order in most places; minced pork shoulder with a little liver, or a coarse sausagemeat with thyme and lemon zest, fills the cavity to the same purpose. Skewer or tie the opening shut or the stuffing will wash out into the braise.
- Moist sugarUnrefined soft sugar, still damp from the refinery. Light brown sugar is the direct equivalent.
- The beerA brown ale or mild suits this braise better than a heavily hopped modern IPA, whose bitterness concentrates over five hours of reduction.
- Muslin sachetCheesecloth or a tea infuser for the bruised celery seed. Loose celery seed turns gritty and its flavour becomes medicinal in a long braise.
- Five hours, and whyHeart is dense, hard-working muscle with a great deal of collagen and almost no marbling. It is either seared and served rare in minutes or stewed for hours; the middle ground is leather. Hold the liquid at a bare shiver, around 200F, or set the covered pot in a 300F oven, which holds that temperature with no attention.
- ServingServes six to seven, as stated. Let the heart rest before carving and slice it thinly across the grain. Skim the fat from the braising liquid and reduce it, or thicken with a little beurre manie, before sending it to table.
Cassell's was written for households where nothing edible was wasted and where offal did real work in the weekly budget: the note that a whole bullock's heart cost 2s 6d and fed six or seven people is the argument for the dish. Stuffed and stewed heart belongs to a long English tradition of treating the cheap, dense muscles as a joint in miniature, dressed up with forcemeat and cloves so that it could be carved at the table like a roast. The hare forcemeat sits oddly on so humble a base, though what it was meant to signal is a matter of interpretation, and beer stands in the braising liquid. Heart largely vanished from British cooking after the mid-twentieth century, when offal fell out of favour, and has come back mainly through nose-to-tail restaurant cooking, where it is usually grilled rare rather than given the five hours Cassell's insists on.