The Nasty Bits: Venison Heart Tartare Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Do you need to soak a deer heart before cooking? ›

Remove any connective tissue.

Wild game meat can be lean and fibrous, and deer heart is no exception. To clean the meat, let it soak in a large bowl of cold water to remove any excess blood.

If you leave it in these large pieces, you can pound them into a cutlet or schnitzel and make jagerschnitzel with it, or make grilled deer heart with peppers and onions. If you cut the big pieces into chunks, you can make Peruvian anticuchos, marinated grilled deer heart on a stick.

Not only is heart delicious and straightforward to prepare, but it also contains folate, iron, zinc, selenium, and B vitamins essential for our own heart health. The easiest way to prepare the heart is to cut off the aorta, fat, and hard connective tissue from the top and then slice the heart in half.

heart with a damp cloth, soak overnight in salted water, and then drain.

First, trim off the hard fat cap from the top of the heart.

Any visible fat or connective tissue needs to be cut away from outside of the heart with a very sharp knife until only purple meat is remaining. Second, rinse the heart under cold water while squeezing the heart to pump it.

I suggest soaking the heart in a salty cold water bath to help draw out the blood from the heart. Discard the blood and then you can soak the heart in a bowl of water along with about a cup of apple cider vinegar to help tenderize it a little bit, or you can begin using it as is.

You want them to be medium rare. If you cook them too much they will be rubbery and not nearly as delicious.

There are symbolic implications of the heart-first approach to eating animals, but there's a practical reason as well. In the hours after a kill, when rigor mortis takes hold of the body's red meat, the heart is easier to chew than skeletal muscle thanks to its fine-grained tissue.

The heart should be slightly pink in the center; if it is still red or bloody, it needs to cook longer. If you are cooking it like a steak, use a digital thermometer and aim to remove from heat at 125°–130°, medium-rare doneness. It's best served on the more rare side of medium rare, to prevent toughness.

Can you freeze a deer heart to eat later? Yes but if you don't clean it before you freeze it, you'll want to eat it within a few months of freezing it. The blood left inside the heart can give the meat an off-flavor and it's best to eat it sooner rather than later.

Can you eat a deer heart if you shot it? ›

Avoid consuming internal organs, which can contain extra lead from heart-lung shots. Remind your meat processor, or if you process your venison, not to use deer with excessive shot damage.

It's peppery, like arugula, but has an aftertaste that oscillates between good and a little strong. I'd never thought a lot about deer heart, other than using the amount of it browsed as a gauge for where to hunt deer, and to try not to slip on it when it's raining.

This is one of the worst things to do to any animal carcass after its slaughter. Putting the meat in water allows bacteria (primarily E. coli) to grow and spread over the entire carcass. It also removes all of the flavor from the meat.

Sear the heart squares quickly on both sides, about 1 minute on each. You want them to be medium rare. If you cook them too much they will be rubbery and not nearly as delicious.