Beef Heart

So my vegetarian-sister-roomate-prankster got me a beef heart from the farmer's market for V-day a few weeks ago. Having no real clue how to cook it or even what it looks like I consulted the biggest cookbook ever-> the interweb. It seemed that there were only two ways to cook it; rare after marinating it, or braise it and cook the shit out of it. Since it was a cold rainy day I decided to go with braising.

The most interesting/gross aspect of the process was prepping the heart. You have to take all sorts of arteries and silverskin to get it ready to cook. After I cleaned it I attempted to stuff it with a mixture of sauteed pancetta and mushrooms (stolen from some recipie on the web). Neither the suffing nor the act of stuffing worked very well but I decided to stick with braising it in a mixture of red wine and stock even though the outcome was obvious-it would soon fall apart.

After cooking it for about two hours it was ready. I cooked the gravy down and served it with some sauteed green beans, mashed potatoes and some pickled radishes I had made. The beef heart, well...it left a lot to be desired. The texture was a little off putting (kind of like some week old sponge cake). While the flavor wasn't bad, a slight iron taste lingered from it (which actually worked well with the pickles).

In hindsight I might have cooked it a little to high and too long. I probably should have tried broiling it med rare, at least that way  On a bright spot we had a good wine- an Italian Primitivo. Primitivo is the Italian version of the wine most of us know as Zinfandel. Like Zinfandel, it is a nice big juicy red that was quite tasty and easy on the palette. So i doubt beef heart well make it in the regular rotation but it was fun to try.....