Cut away grisly or stringy parts of the pig heart.
The pig heart that you get may or may not cut open already. This one was, and that made it easier to get to the the parts to cut out.
Preheat oven to 350°.
On stovetop, melt 2-3T of butter in a saulte pan, and cook 1C of sliced mushrooms, 1/2 chopped onion, and 2 cloves garlic minced or chopped, until mushrooms and onions are soft.
Add 3 slices of toasted bread (or 2C of bread crumbs), turn to low heat, and toss with the mixture.
Add 1T salt (less, if using bread crumbs) and 1t of pepper. Toss again, and adjust seasonings.
Add 1/4 C of chopped, fresh parsley, stir, and turn off the heat.
Here comes the tricky, make-it-up-as-you-go, there’s no right answer, part: “Stuffing” the little heart, especially if it’s already cut open. So pretend.
In an oven proof casserole dish (with lid) put some stuffing in whatever holes there are, in the cavity, and then turn the heart over, opened side down.
Kinda like the picture to the right, except with stuffing in/under it.
Nestle the remainder of the stuffing (whatever couldn’t even pretend to be ‘stuffed’) around the heart, cover, and put in the pre-heated oven.
At this point, I start preparing and chopping/cubing my vegetables: The other 1/2 onion, and 2 large, or 3 small potatoes. Add to the casserole dish. Add 1C broth.
Continue to bake for 30-40 minutes, until meat is around 140° and doesn’t show pink when sliced. Hopefully the vegetables are done by then too.
Slice through the heart and stuffing, and try to make it look neat on a serving platter with the vegetables. Or skip that last part, and just slice the heart and stuffing. Whatever works for you and the people who are eating it.
Ok, so here’s the back story, confessions, and credit where credit is due.
This is one of the first recipes I’m posting on this blog, and I have a steep learning curve; even things like, learning how to crop pictures so you see less of my messing and distracting kitchen table. Feel free to comment on things you liked about this post, and things you wish it had.
A word on formatting: I’m going to be putting the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the recipe at the top, and the narrative/fluffy stuff here at the bottom. So now you know where to look for what. The reasoning is this: Because of my own personal experience when I’m following a recipe online, it’s often from my phone, which consistently goes dark after 90 seconds. And sometimes I have to click back through pages to get to where I left off (Pintrest, I’m looking at you). The less I need to scroll and click, while my hands are covered with raw meat, melting cheese, or greasy lard, the better. There are probably some technological advances I could employ to also solve this problem. Please leave suggestions in the comments. Or money in my mailbox in order to purchase a tablet with magnets that I can attach to my refrigerator.
Due Credit: This is a combination recipe, using the “Baked Beef Heart” recipe from More with Less Cookbook, and “Bread Stuffing with Mushrooms” recipe from How to Cook Everything. (As it turns out, the cookbook title is a misnomer…no recipes on how to cook pig heart. But still a great cookbook.)
Confessions: I made this dish almost a month ago, and took the pictures, but I actually kinda forget what I did. Did I add the scallion, as called for in How to Cook Everything? I doubt it, because I don’t usually have scallions in my refrigerator. (But I don’t often have mushrooms either, and I think I see them in the pictures.) Did I toast the bread, or just throw in pieces of frozen hamburger bun? I’m not sure. I’m also not sure if 3 pieces of toast would be equivalent to 2C of breadcrumbs. The stuffing recipe is sized to make “enough for a 12-pound bird”, but I forget how I sized it down to a 1 pound pig heart. And baking times and temperature…HAH! I made that up too.
I just kinda make it up. When people ask me how I cook something, it’s hard to say, because I just kinda make it up as I go along, and I don’t remember what I did. When it comes to organ meat, especially heart and tongue, I experiment, and just make it up. Say the recipe calls for tenderloin, but there’s a frozen tongue licking you sitting there every time you open the freezer? Well, try using it instead!
So that’s what I do, and I’ll try to remember better next time and post it on this blog, and maybe it’ll give you an idea of what to cook for dinner.