Wednesday, 28 August 2024

Hearts and Minds


I have just read in the paper that Waitrose (a high-end UK food store) it to start selling Lamb's Hearts again, after having previously stopped in 2016.

I must have been born an 'adventurous eater'. As a small child nothing was more delicious to me than chewing on a lump of raw Beef, and/or my mother's roasted stuffed Lambs hearts. 


As my mother prepared her Sunday roasts, she would always give me pieces of raw Beef to eat, which I absolutely loved. 

I think the Lamb's hearts were probably a particular post-war dish, and very cheap; you don't see them these days (until now at Waitrose). I absolutely loved them, and had forgotten all about them until recently. I expect these days they've mostly gone into the making of Haggis.

I was born in 1946, and in those post-war years we ate 'different' things. Food was still rationed, and you survived on what was available. We were lucky, my people had a large garden with fruit, vegs, and poultry. For some reason Lambs hearts must have been amongst the readily 'available' meats at the village butcher's.

They were stuffed with a standard Sage-n-Onion stuffing, and roasted. I wonder what I would make of them today? Somehow they no longer really appeal, but I might buy some anyway, just to see! I think plenty of Olive oil, salt, and ground cumin would make them really delicious.

I remember them as being a real treat. 

 

22 comments:

  1. I can't remember ever eating lamb Hearts. We buy them for the cat. Might have a go at cooking tgem.

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    1. I'm surprised. I used to love them. We used to have them just like the photo above; stuffed and tied.

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  2. Having survived my mother's roasted stuffed Lambs hearts, I rediscovered heart as a meat when we got a slow cooker.
    There was a recipe in the "attached" "How to use your Slow Cooker" book and as oxheart is easy to get hold of in France, I gave it a go.
    6hrs on low, overnight on medium and 6hrs on high.... in a tomato sauce [recipe suggested wine... I used a dark beer]....
    sauce was onions, garlic, tomatoes [I used oxheart], red pepper and radishes [which make wonderful bitesize, peppery turnips]
    Never looked back, use a heart based dish at least half-a-dozen times a year.
    It is actually very good for you... next to venison and ostrich, one of the least fatty meats around!

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    1. I remember it as being very tasty meat, not unlike Duck. I would think that after 6 hrs slow cooking it would be superb.
      Are you taking paying guests???

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    2. Nope! In fact we have now lost the guest room as my good lady now needs an upeee-downeee medical bed, so our clothes are now in the guest room.... and we've had a chairlift installed.... sorreeee!
      Try it for yourself!

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  3. We were always told that eating raw meat would give you worms!!

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    1. I wouldn't eat raw Pork or Chicken, but I think Beef is OK.

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  4. My mum loved them and we had them often.

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    1. I expect we had them at least once a month. It's a long time ago!

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  5. I do remember my mother cooked hearts just once. I am not sure why she didn't repeat the experiment as I recall it tasted OK.

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    1. The idea is a bit strange, but the taste is good. As with all offal, one needs to be 'open-minded'.

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  6. Stuffed lambs heart sounds good. The lamb heart here goes into making the spit of offal called kokoretsi or straight into the frying pan.
    I don't know about raw beef, though I've heard you get a lot more nourishment from the raw beef. Your mother gave you a good start to life.

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    1. I think my mother simply had a seriously carnivore son! I think I was a bit of 'a handful'.

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  7. Not something I've ever eaten - as far as I know! Nor something I've seen in the supermarkets here, and even if available I'm unlikely to buy.

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    1. It certainly wouldn't appeal to everyone. As a child I probably didn't even know what a 'heart' was! As long as it tasted good.....

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  8. Your mother threw you lumps of raw beef? Did they think you would become a lion when you grew up - like Simba in "The Lion King"?

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    1. Grrrrrr! More like the Lion in The Wizard of Oz.

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  9. My French mother frequently made steak tartare which was delicious and I adored. Was briefly shocked one day to discover it was made and eaten as minced raw beef, but admit I got over it quickly.

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    1. As you might imagine, I am a Steak Tartare fan. I love it.

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  10. Replies
    1. I think I will, although my appetite isn't what it was.

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  11. When we used to butcher our beef we would eat the heart and the tongue. Boiled it first, sliced it and rolled it in flour, and fried it. It made a tasty sandwich for when all hands were busy processing beef.

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