There are so many beautiful books released this fall that I can not afford to buy even half of those I would like to have. The ones I have purchased are lovely, but sometimes the old ugly books, the ones released over thirty years ago remind us of that delicious food is not a recent trend and that snout to tail cooking was not invented in 2005.
The book that sparked this dish is part of the Good Cook series and was released in 1982. This series is homely, but each one that I have is worth having and this specific book may be the best of all of them. As far as offal goes, it is the best book I own (with all apologies to Jennifer Maclagan who writes offal books better than anything I could ever hope to write).
When gifted a lovely venison heart, I paged through this treasure and found about a dozen large heart recipes that inspired me to stuff this heart, tie it with twine and wrap it in caul fat. This was the framework of a recipe for a much larger ox heart. However in my fridge, I had rosemary and roasted chestnuts. With a little heel of bread, an egg, some garlic and a little salt, the stuffing was at hand.
After trimming and opening the heart, I spread the stuffing, rolled the heart and tied it with twine. I, then, quickly wrapped the heart with caul fat and stuffed the stuffed heart in the fridge. When ready to eat, the oven was preheated to 450 with the cast iron pan in the oven during the preheating. When it was at temperature, a splash of oil was added then the heart went into the oven for three minutes. At three minutes, I flipped the heart and finished it in the oven for another 4-5 minutes.
The heart was delicious, the stuffing especially so, but the twine under caul proved to be an impediment for easy access enjoyment. I need to break the Variety Meats and see how they suggest working around the twine and what else may be in the 1982 think tank.
From Belly to Bacon 
not a lot of venison hearts lying in the coolers at my farmers market, would a pig heart work?
I think it would, most definitely. I also love pork hearts as garnishes in sausages and terrines. Beautiful color.
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Instead of using twine, you can use one or two skewers to hold the meat in place. See here: http://gocarnivore.com/2012/11/12/venison-heart-love-in-disguise/
The good cook is the greatest single cooking reference I think I own, with La Methode by Jacque Pepin as a close second. Especially the hard to find “Game” volume, that one still beats any game book out there
I’ve been searching out a copy of the Game edition. I think it is only released in the UK, but that is no reason to stop searching for it. I love my copies. I have picked each one up for less than a buck and they are workhorses.
Wow, I stumbled on this site looking for duck ham recipes and then stumbled on an old friend in the comments. Collins – Hope all is well with you, glad to see you are still cooking. Mark – Great site! I’ve been poking around for an hour or so and already found a ton of great cooking project ideas.
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