Wine-poached hearts
Serves 4 | Preparation 30-40 min, cooking time 3 hours
Pig hearts are an underrated and dodged but a lean and wonderful cooking ingredient. They taste a bit like other entrails like liver or kidneys but their flavor is milder and the texture is vaguely (ox) tongue-like. The brawn becomes tender when it’s trimmed and cooked carefully. Hearts can be seasoned like any meat.
Instructions
1. Prepare the hearts: start by cutting off most of the fat, tough membranes/filaments and silver skin from the surface with kitchen scissors or a filleting knife.
2. Cut the hearts in two so that one end keeps intact (butterfly-shape).
3. Rinse off all the blood clots and impurities by squeezing lightly under running water, pat-dry and place the hearts on top of a chopping board inside up.
4. Cut off the largest arteries, membranes and tendons.
5. Set the oven to 175°C /340-350 °F/gas mark 4, no fan.
6. Heat up the butter in a frying pan/skillet on medium-high heat and brown the flattened hearts (2-3 minutes per side).
7. Clean the mushrooms, rinse and trim the black kale and chop it into big pieces, deseed the bell pepper and cut it into bits.
8. Peel and chop the parsnip into chunks, rinse and cut up the chives, peel the garlic cloves and cut them in half.
9. Line a medium-sized, high-edged Dutch oven/lidded oven pan with parchment paper (to ease washing up) and place the hearts on the bottom.
10. Cover the hearts with a layer of mushrooms, garlic, kale, parsnip and bell pepper.
11. Mix the salt, black pepper and corn flour with the chives and place the mixture on top.
12. Pour over the wine and water and mix a little.
13. Line the lid with parchment paper and cook in the oven for about 3 hours.
14. Slice the hearts and pick up the mushrooms for garnish.
15. Masticate/purée the rest of the stew in a blender/mixer; (if you like, you can add some more wine to liquify the purée or some heavy cream or crème fraîche to lighten the brownish green color; I left it as it is).
16. Place the heart slices on a serving plate, cover with purée, garnish with mushrooms and sprinkle with finger salt.
17. Serve with e.g. fresh vegetables and rice cooked in beef stock with a splash of lime.
Pig hearts are an underrated and dodged but a lean and wonderful cooking ingredient. They taste a bit like other entrails like liver or kidneys but their flavor is milder and the texture is vaguely (ox) tongue-like. The brawn becomes tender when it’s trimmed and cooked carefully. Hearts can be seasoned like any meat.
Ingredients
✧ ~900 g/2 lb pig hearts (two hearts)
✧ 10 g/0.1 stick/0.35 oz butter
✧ 200 g/0.44 lb/7 oz button mushrooms/champignons
✧ 200 g/0.44 lb/7 oz black kale (long-stemmed leaf cabbage with curly leaves; also known as Tuscan or black cabbage, cavolo nero or palm tree cabbage)
✧ 200 g/0.44 lb/7 oz parsnip
✧ 1 medium-sized green bell pepper/sweet pepper
✧ 2 large bunches of chives (~300-350 ml/1.3-1.5 cups when chopped)
✧ 3-4 cloves of garlic
✧ 100 ml/63 g/0.4 cups/2.2 oz (yellow) corn flour
✧ salt to taste (I put ~4 teaspoons which didn’t seem too much) + a pinch of finger salt/kosher salt to sprinkle on top
✧ 1 teaspoon black pepper
✧ 375 ml/1.6 cups red wine
✧ 375 ml/1.6 cups water
Instructions
1. Prepare the hearts: start by cutting off most of the fat, tough membranes/filaments and silver skin from the surface with kitchen scissors or a filleting knife.
2. Cut the hearts in two so that one end keeps intact (butterfly-shape).
3. Rinse off all the blood clots and impurities by squeezing lightly under running water, pat-dry and place the hearts on top of a chopping board inside up.
4. Cut off the largest arteries, membranes and tendons.
5. Set the oven to 175°C /340-350 °F/gas mark 4, no fan.
6. Heat up the butter in a frying pan/skillet on medium-high heat and brown the flattened hearts (2-3 minutes per side).
7. Clean the mushrooms, rinse and trim the black kale and chop it into big pieces, deseed the bell pepper and cut it into bits.
8. Peel and chop the parsnip into chunks, rinse and cut up the chives, peel the garlic cloves and cut them in half.
9. Line a medium-sized, high-edged Dutch oven/lidded oven pan with parchment paper (to ease washing up) and place the hearts on the bottom.
10. Cover the hearts with a layer of mushrooms, garlic, kale, parsnip and bell pepper.
11. Mix the salt, black pepper and corn flour with the chives and place the mixture on top.
12. Pour over the wine and water and mix a little.
13. Line the lid with parchment paper and cook in the oven for about 3 hours.
14. Slice the hearts and pick up the mushrooms for garnish.
15. Masticate/purée the rest of the stew in a blender/mixer; (if you like, you can add some more wine to liquify the purée or some heavy cream or crème fraîche to lighten the brownish green color; I left it as it is).
16. Place the heart slices on a serving plate, cover with purée, garnish with mushrooms and sprinkle with finger salt.
17. Serve with e.g. fresh vegetables and rice cooked in beef stock with a splash of lime.
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