And so we come to the heart of the matter and one of my favourite piggy parts. It’s an extremely busy organ and so is quite lean compared to much of the animal, but not at the cost of flavour.
Pig's Heart
I am, of course, talking about the pig’s heart. ¾ of a pound / 350 grams of delicious muscle. Enough for two servings. Scale up as required. The heart does not taste or have the same mouthfeel as other pork parts; in fact it’s more like beef in flavour, but a smoother texture, I find.
Heart is one of those foods which like, for example, squid, need to be cooked for the briefest possible time or cooked for a very long time. Anything in-between is inedible. I’ve done both and can’t decide which I prefer – except when I’m hungry which is most of the time – then quicker is better!
As always the heart is cleaned and any connective tissue, sinews and silver skin removed. There may be some fat around the top; trim away any excess. Some recipes suggest soaking the heart overnight to remove blood and impurities; I’ve never found that to be necessary.
|Pig's Heart
The heart can be sliced and flash fried or diced marinated overnight in olive oil and herbs of choice, then again fried for 10 minutes at most before serving with a salad and any remaining marinade.
For some reason, I find many recipes pair it with carrots. Wouldn’t be my first choice, but then I find carrots boring most of the time*. Here is one French recipe and one Thai/Chinese both featuring carrots.
If you want to go the slow cooking route, hearts need a minimum of an hour’s simmering to get them anywhere near tender. Seems like too much trouble for little gain, to me.
Beef hearts are rarely available around here and are larger than is practical in my life. I’ve had lamb hearts in northern China and damned good they were, too, but I’ve never seen here.
*There are exceptions, I know.
