Nearly a month ago, I had a random thought regarding Valentine’s Day dinner. For as long as I can remember, we have stayed home on actual Valentine’s Day, instead choosing to celebrate on a random day. This year was no different, we had a great meal at Avec in Chicago, but instead of treating the 14th like any other day, I’d try something a little outrageous – I would cook heart for Valentine’s Day.
While picking up said heart from the friendly neighborhood butcher, he mentioned that if he was cooking it, he would confit it first and then warm it on the grill. After digging a little deeper, he suggested not beef tallow since it may drive beef flavors to the extreme, but olive oil or bacon fat. The choice was pretty easy.
Lately, I have been using the cryovac and water bath a lot to do slow confit projects, so from here, the part was familiar. First, the heart and fat go in the bag and then I added herbs and seasoning. Then the air gets vacuumed from the bag and the bag submerged in a water bath in a dutch oven that is placed in a 190 degree oven for 12 hours.
After 12 hours, I chilled the entire bag until dinner time, when I poured the contents of the bag into a bowl and scraped the fat from the heart. The heart was heated inches over coals and then left to rest for 15 minutes.
Finally when sliced, I saw that, while the meat was cooked for a dozen hours plus time on the grill, it was still bright pink. The texture was extraordinarily tender and if you didn’t know that it was heart, you may confuse it with a tenderloin. Honestly, it may have been the best combination of beefiness and tenderness that I have had.
The dinner was a rousing success. It started with salumi from Riviera, then we had roasted carrots and parsnips with honey and rosemary, then the beef heart, and then a big wheel of the some of Wisconsin’s finest. This Upland’s Rush Creek Reserve is a delicious soft cheese and most certainly the biggest rock star cheese of the winter. It was amazing and it is nearing the end of its availability. If you can find it, swallow hard, pay the money, and enjoy this amazing cheese. Following the cheese, we split a bar of Askinosie chocolate (also worth seeking out) and a heart shaped peanut butter cookie dipped in unsweetened cocoa and sprinkled in salt cream. Fun times.
With all of that food and only two of us (the girls were asleep), we had lots of leftovers. Day 2 of confit beef heart tuned into some kind of fancy taco night. Topped with only cilantro, red onion, a squeeze of lime, and a quick batch of roasted tomatillo-chipotle salsa, the tacos were a perfect vehicle for the tender, beefy heart. The salsa still has a special place in my heart as it was the first “gourmet” recipe that I made in the early 2000’s.
Beef Heart Confit
- 1 trimmed beef heart
- 3/4 cup bacon fat
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
- salt and pepper to taste
Step one: Combine all ingredients in a vacuum bag.
Step two: Cook in a water bath in a dutch oven in your oven at 190 degrees for 12 hours. Chill when finished.
Step three: Remove heart from bag, scrape bacon fat from heart, and cook directly over hot coals for 2 minutes per side. Rest for 15 minutes and slice across the grain.
From Belly to Bacon 
Amazing! I need to try your confit method. Sounds so simple — and effective. I’d love to prepare a heart, but not sure my wife would go for that. We ate at one of Michale Symon’s restaurants a few months ago. I ordered grilled calves heart – wonderful! My wife however would not give it a try. I tasted her rib eye. While it was outstanding (and my favorite steak), I was glad I ordered the heart.
I was thinking recently….there are blogs that have much fancier layouts and web design. There are blogs that have more professional looking photography. But for many months now you have been posting my favorite content and recipes. Your sense of adventure and good taste inspires me. When I am busy, and have a choice of reading one of several blog posts, I’ll chose yours first, as I find them outstanding.
Thanks for the excellent posts — keep up the god work!
Thanks John, it really means a lot to read that. And I will continue to work on the layout and photography :).
For the heart, I encourage you to try it. Have your butcher trim it for you and, to get your wife to try it, the taco idea may be more accessible to her. People think of heart like they do of kidney or liver, but it is far closer to more traditional cuts and doesn’t, to me, have an offal flavor.
I often refer to heart as the gateway offal…
Mark — Hope you didn’t take the comments about the layout and photography as a knock. I don’t think you did….but just to clarify my thoughts. Content is king — fancy layouts and cool shots may look nice, but the content, the story that is told needs to have substance. Your always do for me. While I think it’s fine to work on the layout and photography — if you didn’t change a thing with those you still have what I think most readers are looking for. Outstanding content.
I’d try the heart in….a heartbeat! (Couldn’t help that sappy one). Maybe if I make it I can coax her into it. I’ll give it a shot.
Thanks again!
John K.
No, I didn’t at all. I was joking.
The look of your blog is perfect for the topic – I think you’re doing an awesome job with this blog. I look forward to reading it, especially since I’ve been trying some of this stuff myself.
Not as simple as you make it look for sure! I’m off to fry up some salty bacon now….
Thanks. I am honored by the compliments.
What weight was the heart?
I have a beef heart from my pastured beef provider that I’ve been waiting to put to use and I’d love to try your method. I don’t have the vacuum sealing ability but can surely dig up enough olive oil to make this work.
Pingback: Sweetheart, Sweet Heart {Charcutepalooza} Beef Heart Confit | Hounds In The Kitchen
Pingback: Pickled Venison Heart | From Belly to Bacon
Pingback: Venison Anitcuchos « From Belly to Bacon
Pingback: Happy Valentine’s Day — Hearts, Hearts, Everywhere!! « From Belly to Bacon
For this recipe you note that even though you had the heart in the oven for 12 hours, you were surprised that it was still quite pink. Would you consider bumping the temperature up a bit? I imagine that the internal must have reached 190, and maybe that’s the magic number for beef heart. Just curious to know if you thought you could have made any improvements on this go ’round.
Keep up the righteous work.
No, I think that the texture was right with the heart. At the time, I had not confited beef, so I did not know what to expect. Since then, I have cooked heart a number of times and, truth be told, the rarer the better.
Pingback: Lamb Brain Custard « From Belly to Bacon