Ox heart stew

It be proper hearty!

Lots of people eat steak these days but most of them neglect other parts of the cow, such as the offal. It could be dismissed as awful, but offal is actually tasty and people need to get over their phobia of such things. So, this is the first post of many to come about the offal side of life.

Ox heart is huge and cheap. I bought mine for £5 from the local butcher and they were perplexed that someone asked for heart. I did initially want lamb's heart as they fry rather nicely, but they only had ox heart in stock.

That's what an ox heart looks like. Not that dissimilar to your own heart, just a lot bigger. To prepare the heart you want to rinse it first, washing out the ventricles etc., because congealed blood isn't that nice (unless it's in a black pudding). Then you want to grab a sharp knife and cube the heart. Be sure to leave the fat on as it'll make the stew rich in taste, but if you come across any sinew you want to cut this out and discard. It gets tough in the cooking process.

 Half way done and the heart will look like this. Finish off the cubing process.

Complete cubed ox heart in a slow cooker. If you've cooked a stew before you can do what you want to finish it off. If you haven't cooked a stew before, pay attention.

Dust the heart with flour as this will help the sauce thicken up and you'll have a nice jus. If you want a gravy at the end, you'll have to take the jus and add a cornflour paste to get that sort of thickness.
Add some vegetables. What you put in is entirely up to you. For this I went simple with potatoes, onion and carrots.
Add some stock (beef, chicken or vegetable is fine) and season to taste. Cook slowly for a good few hours and you'll be the proud owner of one of the most delicious tasting stews there is. Also suitable for freezing.