Recipes

Slow-Cooked Heart (Jeff's)

Beef · Crock Pot · Dinner · Game · Instant Pot · Offal · Venison

Slow-Cooked Heart (Jeff's)
Prep 20 min
Cook 1 hr (Instant Pot) or 8 hr (crock pot)
Serves 4 to 6
Level Medium

Hearts are very tough — beef, deer and rabbit alike — so mine usually go into the Instant Pot, sometimes the crock pot. The other way I cook them is sliced and braised with bacon (below). Either way it is the long-and-slow route: a heart cooked halfway is chewy, and one cooked all the way is tender, lean and beefy.

Ingredients

  • 1 beef heart (2 to 3 pounds), or 1 to 2 deer hearts, or several rabbit hearts

Salt and black pepper

  • 1 tablespoon oil or bacon fat
  • 1 onion, sliced
  • 3 cloves garlic, smashed
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 cup beef broth or water

For the bacon braise

  • 4 slices bacon, cut in 1-inch pieces
  • 1 onion, sliced
  • 1 cup broth

Directions

  1. Trim. Cut away the fat cap, the valves, and the tubes and sinew at the top of the heart. What remains is solid, dark muscle. Rinse out any blood clots from the chambers.
  2. Cut. For the pressure cooker or slow cooker, cut the heart into 1 1/2-inch chunks. For the bacon braise, slice it about 1/4 inch thick.
  3. Brown. Season with salt and pepper. Brown the pieces in the oil or bacon fat (use the Instant Pot’s Sauté setting), in batches.
  4. Instant Pot. Add the onion, garlic, bay and broth, lock the lid and cook at high pressure — about 45 minutes for beef-heart chunks, less for deer and rabbit — then let the pressure release naturally. Check that the meat is tender; if not, cook 10 minutes more.
  5. Crock pot. Put everything in the slow cooker and cook on low until fork-tender, 8 hours or so.
  6. Bacon braise. Render the bacon in a heavy skillet, add the onion and soften it, then add the sliced heart and brown it lightly. Pour in the broth, cover, and simmer gently until tender, topping up with water as needed.

Notes

What this is My methods, not measured recipes. The cooking times above are starting points, not measurements — heart size varies a great deal, and the test is tenderness, not the clock.

Fast and hot is the other way A heart can also be sliced thin and seared to medium-rare, like Peruvian anticuchos — see Anticuchos De Corazon (PERUVIAN BEEF HEART SKEWERS). Anything in between is tough.

Deer hearts in Michigan Prion protein has been found in the heart muscle of deer with chronic wasting disease (7 of 16 infected deer in one study). Michigan offers free CWD testing; get the deer tested before eating the heart.

The Offal dive on the Food site covers this part in depth.