Weekend Evaluation: Owner of a Lonely Heart (aka Heart of the Sunrise)

This was the weekend of beef heart.  I've had a small beef heart in the freezer for months, so I decided it was time it come out of there.  To break it down into workable pieces of meat you have to trim away lots of silver skin and fat; which leaves the leanest meat you probably can find.

You'd think all of those uptight people who eat chicken breast and who've influenced our pork industry to breed out all of the fat from our pigs would love this cut....but oh yeah- they're scared of everything, so they wouldn't try heart.

This was also the first weekend of our vacation, so we were out a lot, and we went to Meatopia - a BBQ event on Governor's Island - marred by the unacceptable inclusion of Sixpoint beer.

- Corn Frozen Custard -

Positive -  This tasted very much like corn.  If you like corn then you will like this.

Negative -  Texture is a little hard; maybe needed more time in the ice cream machine to get more air in there; not sure.  I got used to ice cream with no eggs, and this is an egg based custard; was following a Dan Barber recipe that was in Gourmet a while back.   Could be sweeter.

- Multigrain Pale Ale Batard -

Positive - This thing definitely rose.  I have some mild concerns about rising with the beer yeast starters, but this thing took off.

Negative -  It didn't have much structure and didn't really hold it's shape, so it's a little flat.  The crumb is fine, but the overall shape of the loaf isn't great.

- Beef Heart and Egg flatbread -

Positive - The heart has a very mild taste and when cooked to medium rare (maybe even medium) isn't chewy and has a pretty nice texture.  Maybe a slight 'offal'/mineral flavor; but there is so little fat, it's not incredibly beefy.

The flatbread from the freezer was really good and Egg was fine

Negative - I may have actually under cooked the heart; but this was OK.

- Beef Heart Sandwich -

- with bourbon onions and smoked cheddar - 

 Positive - I brought Joe and Brendan a heart steak I had cooked off that morning with some onion cooked while the meat was resting.  I tasted everything and it seemed pretty good.  The Smoked cheddar I gave them to put on there is some really good cheese from the Amish vendor at the farmers market.

Negative - The onions could have used more bourbon flavor.  I would normally would have given them bread, but I was out and felt bad about it.

- Beef Heart Salad -

English Peas, Broccoli, romaine, dill/sour cream/zucchini dressing

Positive - With it being vacation, we ate out a lot.  When we were home we stuck to salads for two reasons - it uses the vegetables fast, and it's hopefully going to balance out all of the big foods we're eating out.  That being said it's not very interesting to think or write about.  

Negative - This was a fine salad, nothing interesting.

- Spicy Garlic Dill Pickles -

Cucumbers and Zucchini

The cucumbers are just getting started and the Poles down in Greenpoint go crazy.  If you get there at 7:45 (15 minute before the market opens) they're already buying every kirby, dill sprig, dill flower, and cabbage there.  Meanwhile at the Sunnyside market I'm the only Pole picking up cucumbers and dill for pickles.

Positive - I'm not sure how these taste yet, I haven't tried them, but at least I can eat pickles again.

Negative- I didn't really do anything creative here.  Just vinegar, water, dill, garlic, pepper, a little coriander, a tiny bit of mustard seed; nothing crazy.

- Coffee, paprika and cinnamon rubbed Beef Heart Kababs over scrambled Eggs -
w/ smoked breadcrumbs

Positive - I normally don't rub, marinate or otherwise treat meat (a side from brining and sausage making).  We eat these 'quick cooking' cuts of meat so rarely, that I really just want salt and pepper and taste the beef.  In this case I had already eaten so much heart that I felt like doing it another way.

Negative - The rub was ok - I probably could have used more coffee flavor, but overall it tasted like this kind of thing.  Everyone seems to have seen a recipe for this rub, but I just took some of the BBQ rub I used on the pulled pork and added cinnamon and ground coffee.  Instant espresso powder probably would have been better.

- Beef Heart, Broccoli, cheddar Egg White Omelet -

w/ tztaki and braised onion

Positive - This finished the beef heart - all protien no fat.  Used the egg whites from the ice cream for this, and the leftover dill/sourcream and Zucchini mixture that was on the salad.

Negative - Nothing to say here - it was an egg white omelet.  I really don't under stand the point of eating an omelet if you're not going to use the yolks; just eat some protein shake or whatever.

- Sahti Mustard -

Nogne Sahti

Positive - If I'm drinking a beer that's expensive and don't like it (like this Nogne Sahti); I won't throw it away, I'll give it a chance to live on as mustard.  This beer might make good mustard because it's so spiced already with juniper and other tea-like 'botanicals'(?).  Plus I needed some mustard. 

Negative - I walked away from the food processor and the mustard got a little too pureed.  We'll see how it goes.

- Chocolate Donuts -

Positive - I hadn't made donuts in a long time, and felt like making something other than muffins or pancakes for breakfast.  Donuts are pretty easy, and this used a bunch of stuff from the pantry.

The donuts were not greasy and anything fresh from the fryer is a lot better than stuff that sits around.

Negative - It really hard to tell when chocolate batter is browning.  I didn't think about this and over cooked some of these; to the point where they burned, others were dry.  This sucked because how often am I really going to make donuts, they should come out perfect.

These had some weird pretzel taste to them, maybe it was that they were over cooked/burnt, maybe there was a the dough was too alkaline (thanks baking soda) that made it taste like this; I'm not sure.


CSA
Zucchini
Cabbage
Raddichio
Romaine
Yellow Carrots
Kale
Broccoli
Peaches