Offering advanced butchery and meat care techniques

[Vktully]

Would you care to elaborate a little more in the heart recipe ? I want to try this with a fresh elk heart . I get the brine for 5 days and then smoke, but what then ? Do you slice it for sandwiches cold ? Slice and fry with breakfast ? Treat it just like a pork ham ? Also, for prep do you just use it whole since the brine will pull out a lot of the blood? Or do I trim it up nice first. Thank you for this information, very generous of you . Thank you

I’ll start with the prep side. I would leave all organ fat on the heart. If you were looking at the heart as it came out of the animal I would leave all that fat on the outside. Even with beef heart which has more fat I don’t trim it at all. When you open up the heart and your looking at the inside your going to want to trim all things that look like tendon. You’ll mostly find them connecting the folds in the heart. There gonna be noticeably tougher than the rest of the muscle. I unfold the heart to trim it but keep it in one piece the whole time. Your correct the brine will wash and draw out the blood. I like to eat it cold just like prosciutto but it’d be great on a sandwich. I personally like to keep it thin but cooking is about experimenting so dicing it up and eating it with eggs would be delicious. Get creative. I’ll post some pictures to go along with this answer.

[Vktully]

These are beef hearts. First picture is raw after trimming. Second is after the brine,  rolling, and trussing. I basically roll the heart into itself to form a log. The cheese cloth and twine hold the shape. Last picture is post smoking, notice how the cheese cloth and twine allows it to keep its shape out of the smoker. I cook them till the internal temperature is about 150. I would say anywhere from 140-160 would be good.

[HarboritE]

Thank you for taking the time to write that up and post pictures. I’ll update how my experience is after I try this.