Beef Heart in Brown Onion Gravy

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Beef Heart in Brown Onion Gravy

Cooking The Dark Side ...

Beef heart is the poor man’s fillet! Tender, tasty, quite flavourful and easy (fast too) to cook to boot. This is pure heritage food for me. It is one of my earliest, and fondest, food memories – a somewhat melancholy reminiscence of times, places and people that will never be again. C’est la vie.

This was one of Dad’s favourite favourites, right up there with curried mutton tripe, cinnamon sugar pancakes and crispy, well roasted potatoes. Mom refused to even consider cooking these “horrendous things”, referring to the offal – she being a city born and raised girl. This task fell to Ouma Plasie, my paternal granny (plasie being the Afrikaans diminutive for plaas: a farm), during her long, but all too infrequent visits to our house. I still remember her vividly; stately commandeering Mom’s kitchen, dressed in her trademark Crimplene skirts, flowery blouses and near grey (from being boiled too many times to remove stains), half length, cotton aprons. And could she cook and bake? If only I had half the skills and experience of that dear, formidable woman.

This dish is very simple to prepare and has surprisingly few ingredients for the eventual depth of flavour and rich, smooth taste. The tricks lay in the prep-ping of the heart (it needs to be properly cleaned), thoroughly (but carefully) caramelising the onions and being constantly vigilant during the cooking process.

The success of the dish rests squarely on the savoury sweetness of thoroughly caramelised onions. This will require low heat, patience and near constant attention. The beef heart strips are sautéed in the same pan as, and after, the onions. This cooking order uses the liquid rendered from the sautéing meat to lift any caramelised residues from the pan to further boost the flavour profile. Beef stock powder, Worcester sauce, a tad of black pepper and a smidgeon of thyme are simple touches to round off and fill out the overall taste and flavour profiles. The dollop of butter adds a beautiful gloss and satiny-ness to the gravy. Use the very best stock powder you can lay your hands on.

Beef heart has a delicate, beefy flavour quite unlike rump, porterhouse or sirloin – although they are all hard working muscles in the living animal. This recipe is one of those rare occasions where the sharp, easily domineering pungency of freshly ground black pepper is undesirable. Boring, commercial, fine black pepper is just the ticket here, not the bull-in-a-china-shop, freshly ground stuff.

Generally people tend to be squeamish when it comes to cooking and eating heart. Maybe it’s because Westerners tend to attach a lot of emotional and symbolic value to this organ. Love, the seat of the emotions, the most important organ in the body, etc. Many people appear to successfully function on half a brain (or no brain at all), but on half a heart you're dead in the water. Every time. Possibly eating heart is a not too subtle reminder of our own, individual mortalities as well.

Of course the heart's physical appearance doesn't exactly aid in it's gastronomic popularity either. Massive tubes enter and exit it, surrounded by protective, hard body cavity fat and, finally, exhibiting visible veins snaking all over it’s surface. The interior is quite definitely alien looking as well, with all those valve structures and attendant tendon strings. And the thing never stops working either, never rests, take a vacation or go anywhere – it just sits there working all the time. That in itself is definitely quite alien to most humans’ way of life.

But ..., heart is virtually pure protein, making it very nutritious. There is no interstitial fat or marbling present, making it very healthy as well. Yet the cooked tissue remains moist (within limits and reason) due to the very dense nature of heart muscle fibers. And it tastes very good: a touch bland maybe, but with excellent texture and very fine grain – even more delicate than much vaunted fillet. Ideal for simple, rustic, yet deeply satisfying recipes that we shall explore in future posts.

BEEF HEART IN BROWN ONION GRAVY

– PRINT RECIPE –

Recipe yields:

2 Portions

Preparation time:

± 25 minutes

Cooking time:

35 min

Difficulty level:

Moderately easy

Special Equipment Required:

1 x Butcher’s knife, shaving sharp

1x Thin bladed, kitchen utility knife, shaving sharp

1 x Spiral type wire whisk

Ingredients:

Medium onions, thinly sliced	2
Sunflower oil	45ml
Sugar	5ml

Fresh beef heart, cleaned & trimmed	350g

Water	± 150ml
Beef stock powder	10ml
Worcester sauce	30ml
Corn flour	7.5ml
Salt	5ml
Fine black pepper	0.5ml
Dried thyme	0.5ml

Butter	5ml

Method:

1. Prep the heart by cutting it into quarters, from top to bottom, with the butcher’s knife. Remove the venous and arterial tissue from the top of the heart. The ‘boundary’ between the tubular and heart muscle tissue is quite clear. Also remove the hard, yellow fat surrounding (and protecting) these structures and the top of the heart. The utility knife will be handy in this process. The fat tissue can be removed from the heart muscle proper in a manner similar to cutting strips of peel away from an orange or lemon in a top to bottom manner. Rinse well under sold, running water and pat thoroughly dry. Discard the trimmings.

2. Insert an index finger underneath the white tendons controlling the interior heart valves. Make shallow slices into the heart chamber tissue to remove the tendon anchoring points and then slice away the valve flap tissue – flush against the chamber wall – on the opposite side. Discard the trimmings.

3. Slice the prepped muscle tissue into long strips roughly halfway between Stroganoff and Stir Fry in thickness. Halve the very long strips. Cover and set aside until needed.

4. Sauté the onions and oil in medium large sauté pan over medium heat until soft and translucent. Add the sugar, adjust the heat to medium low, and sauté – with frequent stirring and near constant attention – the onions until well caramelised, 20 – 25 minutes. Be vigilant not to let the onions char at any point. Transfer the onions to a clean bowl, cover and keep warm until needed.

5. Return the pan to the heat and adjust it to medium high. Add the heart strips in one batch and sauté until the tissue strips stops rendering liquid, 5 – 6 minutes. The strips should still be pinkish in the centre. Transfer to the onions, cover and keep warm.

6. Combine the stock powder, Worcester sauce, corn flour, salt, black pepper and thyme in a small bowl. Use some of the water to mix it into a thin slurry. Add the rest of the water to the pan over medium low heat. Use the spiral wire whisk to scrape the bottom and sides of the pan to lift any stuck or caramelized residues. Add the slurry and simmer until thickened and flavorful. Add the reserved onions and heart strips. Mix well and warm through. Add a little hot water if the gravy seems to be too thick.

7. Add the butter, mix well and serve immediately on crumbly maize porridge (krummelpap), grits, hash browns, stiff polenta or fluffy couscous.

Beef Heart in Brown Onion Gravy, Side View.

Comments:

Beef heart is encased in fat and has major arteries and veins entering and exiting the organ. All these structures have to be trimmed away. The subsequent mass loss is quite dramatic: ± 40% is removed. However, it is almost pure protein that remains.
Heart requires a modicum of experience in working with raw meat and a little bit of knife skills. Very sharp knives are a definite requirement as well. Take your heart to your friendly neighborhood butchery for prepping if you do not feel confident enough take on the task. Alternatively, find a family member, friend or acquaintance that hunts and processes his or her own venison and ask them for help.
Most large South African abattoirs apparently do not supply local wholesalers, nor retailers, with fresh hearts (or any other organs, except kidneys) anymore. These organs are bulk frozen and packaged as such in 10Kg – 12Kg boxes and supplied to retailers who still carry these items as stock.
Beef (and lamb) hearts are available from many large retail meat suppliers who still carry the traditional offal ingredients such as lamb’s trotters, reticule stomachs, beef liver, kidneys, pork trotters, etc. the butchery section will – for a fee – thaw and process or clean any organs the buyer are uncomfortable to prep him- or herself.