Home › Meat and Poultry Pies › Boiled Beef's Heart
Boiled Beef's Heart
Wash the heart and then let it soak in cold salted water for half an hour. Wipe and stuff the ventricles with a force-meat of bread crumbs and chopped ham or salt pork, seasoned with salt, paprika, thyme, and onion juice. Sew up in fitted piece of cheesecloth and let it come to a boil in salted water, to which a tablespoonful of vinegar has been added. Boil for two hours, turning the heart four or five times. Remove the cloth, and serve with a piquant sauce.
A stuffed beef heart is a long, gentle braise in disguise — the technique is sound, but the word "boil" needs translating before you start.
- Simmer, do not boilA rolling boil for two hours will make the muscle stringy and squeeze the stuffing out. Bring it to the boil as directed, then drop the heat so the water barely trembles, around 180–190F, and hold it there.
- Trimming the heartA whole beef heart usually runs from about 3 lb up to 8 lb. Split it to open the ventricles, then cut away the valves, the tough white membrane inside the chambers, the surface fat and any clotted blood before the soak.
- The salted soakHalf an hour in cold water draws out residual blood and mellows the strong iron flavour. The recipe does not say how salty; about a tablespoon of salt per quart is a reasonable reading. Longer does no harm; change the water once if it clouds badly.
- Force-meat proportionsFor a heart this size, figure about 2 cups fresh bread crumbs to 4 oz finely chopped ham or salt pork, bound with an egg and moistened with a little stock. Onion juice means grated onion pressed through a sieve — grated onion itself works and adds body.
- Salt pork needs tasting firstIf you use salt pork rather than ham, blanch it briefly or taste a scrap raw-fried before salting the stuffing, or the whole force-meat will come out over-salted.
- The cheeseclothSew or tie the stuffed heart in a double layer of cheesecloth so the stuffing stays put and the meat holds its shape. Kitchen twine tied around the outside at intervals does the same job with less sewing.
- DonenessTwo hours is a fair estimate, but heart varies. It is done when a skewer slides into the thickest wall with no resistance; a large one may want two and a half hours. Let it rest ten minutes before slicing crosswise so the stuffing sets.
- The piquant sauceIn cookery of this period a piquant sauce generally meant a sharp brown sauce - the cooking liquid reduced and thickened, finished with vinegar or capers and mustard. Something acidic suits the dish; it cuts the richness of the organ meat.
- YieldOne stuffed beef heart serves four to six as a main course, sliced about half an inch thick.