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Lamb Hearts


Craig Bayliss

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Ok, I've just bought 4 lamb hearts, despite the look of disgust on my wifes face, but I'm at a bit of a loss on how to cook them. A quick google search doesn't present anything particularly inspiring, though I'll cook them any which way if necessary.

Any tried, true or avant garde recipes out there? Happy to go with any cusine. chinese/mongolian would be nice, I've been on a bit of a chinese kick for a year or so.

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Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has a recipe for devilled lamb's hearts or one for Paprikash of Hearts, Liver and Tongues (prepare for more wifely scorn on that one).

On the other hand, you're more likely to find lamb heart recipes in Spanish or Greek recipes rather than Chinese. May I suggest that you look up pig's heart recipes and substitute?

Nick Reynolds, aka "nickrey"

"The Internet is full of false information." Plato
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Heart is super lean muscle.

It has the potential to become tough on cooking.

So either go VERY fast, or VERY slow.

You may find more inspiration if you search for Ox Heart recipes.

How about: - chop to bite-size, marinate for several hours, skewer and then grill the kebabs over hot charcoal?

Edited by dougal (log)

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch ... you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan

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The paprikash is very good. I didn't check the linked recipe, but the one in HFW's "Meat" book also includes liver which I think gets overcooked in the time the hearts cook. I make it with hearts alone for preference.

They are also good cubed and barbequed which is what I do with most of ours, because my wife won't touch them so are easy to include in a mixed barbeque. I like a mixed offal (heart, liver and lung) kebab. Kidneys are just too god devilled for me to consider anything else with those :-)

Also stuffed and braised works well. Nice recipe in Fergus Henderson's "Noise to Tail Eating".

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There's some discussion of cooking lamb hearts here starting at post #157.

Basically, it's stuff 'em and cook low & slow:

post-42214-126417345943.jpg

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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  • 1 year later...

Thanks for the replies guys, I did cook them, and they were good :) I can't believe it's been this long...

I did Spanish style, stuffed with a mixture of rice, green olives, onion, smoked paprika, safron and choritzo.

Bbq'd first to brown then slow cooked. Very nice. I have photos but will need to dig them up.

Edited by Craig Bayliss (log)
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I made duck heart tartare a couple of weeks ago and it was very good, although very rich. I couldn't eat as much as I could of steak tartare. Just finely chopped with shallots, cornichon, capers, etc. Nice little dish to surprise people.

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I recently did veal hearts, stuffed with a corn bread and sausage dressing. I braised them slow and low for about 8 hours and added stock a couple times to keep them moist. They turned out terrific and the 'leftovers' were not bad sliced for sandwiches.

"A cloud o' dust! Could be most anything. Even a whirling dervish.

That, gentlemen, is the whirlingest dervish of them all." - The Professionals by Richard Brooks

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I love a good heart tartar. The last time I made heart tartar, I used veal. Recipe here.

IMG_9683.JPG

The recipe I used would work with lamb, but I might go a different route and use flavors common with lamb such as cumin, lemon and mint maybe topping with grated cured egg yolk rather than a egg yolk sheet.

Andrew Vaserfirer aka avaserfi

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We get venison heart just about every year from the animals we shoot and also take the hearts from game birds. I also like veal heart and lamb when I can get it. Beef heart is a little tough but there is a recipe for stuffed 'Beef Heart Comanche Style' from Walter Jettson that i have tried many years ago.

The prep we use most of the time is to slice thin and briefly saute but we do have a friend that lives on Venison and he boils the hearts, chills, slices and serves with salt and condiments. He is amazed that my son and myself will eat it because he can't get anyone else. He lives way way back in the woods of northern Wisconsin and he and his forebears have owned about 1600 acres for ever. It's a way of life that is being lost.

I will have to try venison heart tartar fall.-Dick

Edited by budrichard (log)
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The tartare? Let me crack open the book I was thinking of. The guy trims it of excess fat and then runs it through a mincer on the coarsest setting (altho' you can chop it by hand). Flavours it pretty much the way you'd flavour regular tartare--shallots, Worcestershire sauce, some chopped cornichons, a bit of Dijon mustard. He--Chris Badenoch, a guy who first appeared on the Australian version of MasterChef and then went on to open a beer and offal place--serves it with a bit of toasted brioche and the obligatory egg yolk.

There's a recipe for cooked hearts, too. The lamb heart is again trimmed of excess fat and cut into 2cm wide strips. It's then seasoned with salt and pepper and then pan-fried for 3-5 minutes over a medium flame.

Chris Taylor

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I've never met an animal I didn't enjoy with salt and pepper.

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