Stewed Heart
This breakfast dish is cheap and delicious.
Small hearts are used in its making. One calf's heart will be enough for four persons. Wash the hearts, place them in a kettle with enough boiling water to cover them, and let them cook slowly for one and one-half hours; then take them from the fire, remove all the fat, and set aside to cool. When the dish is intended for breakfast, this boiling must obviously be done the day before. In the morning cut the hearts into small pieces, removing all the cords and artery cases, and using only the lean portions. To one heart which will make about one and one-half cups of meat when cut) allow the following: One-half teacup of water; one bay leaf; one teaspoon of butter; one tablespoon of flour; three slices of lemon; salt and pepper to taste. Place the chopped heart in a graniteware stewpan, add the water and bay leaf and a dusting of salt and pepper, and stew gently for ten minutes. Rub the flour and butter together, add them with the lemon, stir thoroughly for five minutes, and serve at once.
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A frugal breakfast dish from the era when a whole animal was expected to be eaten. The method is sound; only the vessels, the vague cup measures and the sourcing need translating.
- The hinge: gentle heatHeart is pure lean muscle with a lot of connective tissue and no marbling. Keep the initial cooking at a bare simmer for the full hour and a half; a rolling boil tightens the fibres and no amount of later stewing will loosen them.
- Teacup and half-teacupA teacup in this period is usually reckoned at somewhere between about 4 and 6 fl oz, so the half-teacup of water is only a few tablespoons. The stew is meant to be barely moist, not soupy, so add it by eye and hold a little back.
- Graniteware stewpanGraniteware is enamelled steel, which mattered here because of the lemon. Use enamelled cast iron or stainless; bare cast iron or aluminium will take on a metallic taste from the acid.
- Sourcing a calf's heartNot a supermarket item. Order from a butcher or halal shop; a veal heart runs about 1/2 to 1 lb and yields the cup and a half of trimmed meat the recipe claims. Beef heart is far easier to find but is much larger and tougher, so cut it smaller and allow two to three hours in the first cooking.
- TrimmingThe "cords and artery cases" are the tough valve tissue and the vessel stubs at the top of the heart, plus the silvery sheet on the outside. Cut them all away when the heart is cold and firm; they are unchewable and will not soften.
- Refrigerate overnightThe overnight rest was done in a cold larder. Cool the cooked heart quickly, cover, and refrigerate; use it within two days.
- Flour and butterButter and flour worked to a paste and stirred in to thicken, as in a beurre mani/u00e9, though the recipe's proportions are flour-heavy (a teaspoon of butter to a tablespoon of flour) rather than the usual equal parts. The five minutes of stirring is to cook out the raw flour taste.
- The lemonThree slices per heart is assertive. Slip them in whole with the beurre manié and lift them out before serving, or the pith will turn the sauce bitter.
- YieldOne calf's heart serves four at breakfast alongside toast or fried potatoes; as a main course, count on two.
Stewed heart belongs to the great catalogue of American "cheap and delicious" breakfast meats — kidney, liver, tripe, hash — that filled the morning table before cereal and bacon narrowed the menu. The Butterick Publishing Company, better known for dress patterns and The Delineator, issued its cook book for households running on a budget, where the whole animal was expected to be used. Calf's heart was among the cheapest cuts at the butcher's, and it takes work to trim and turns leathery if mishandled, which is why the recipe is unusually insistent about slow cooking, cold trimming, and using "only the lean portions." The two-day structure — boil the night before, finish in ten minutes at the stove — suited a kitchen where breakfast had to appear early.