Ugh. I'm not even a vegetarian, but that photo turned my stomach.

Can you explain this to me? I don't get it. Why would cooking beef heart at home be scary and a little weird? barlowgirl and JamieO2 obviously get it, but I don't.

@garyLikestoCook, I guess it has to do with the photo itself? It doesn't look any different from the beef loins and pork loins wrapped in plastic, or the slightly bloody whole chickens wrapped in plastic.

Hm. The heart is bigger than I thought. Though given the size of your average steer, I guess it's proportionate.

I've found that most of the "offal" cuts of meat get the reaction JamieO2 and barlowgirl gave. Should the heart be considered offal, however? The heart is a muscle, just like the loin. It's not like a kidney or liver, which has a different function altogether.

Most people, if served the salad pictured above, wouldn't know they were eating heart. If you're going to serve it to guests, might want to tell them after they've eaten and enjoyed, if ever.

They sell tripe and tongue at the grocery store too, but you don't see people en mass rushing out to buy and cook that either. Any unusual piece of meat is a tough sell for many on a good day so to say you can sub a beef heart cheaply instead of steak is a stretch. Sure you can but very few will want to.

So it's just because it's unusual/uncommon? That's a shame. I thought that here, on a food blog, people would be more open-minded to food and not be turned off by such reasons. It seems to go against tolerance and understanding.

Beef heart is the key ingredient in coney dog chili.

It is really funny/sad how disconnected people are from their food sources. I would eat the hell outta that heart, especially in that salad (when I heard this story on the radio last week it had me drooling). I'm not a huge meat eater and don't generally have it more than once or twice in a week, but I've always felt like if you can't handle knowing where you're food comes from, maybe you should reexamine your dietary choices. I am a big proponent of using every cubic centimeter of an animal (which is lucky, as my fondness for hotdogs knows no bounds), so it is always my hope that people can get over their weird arbitrary neuroses about which dead animal muscles are good and which are inexplicably gross. Or not, I guess, if it keeps prices down for the rest of us.

We've been embracing a nose-to-tail approach more, and have cooked beef heart several times recently. It really does rival a steak if prepared properly! It's a very desired cut of meat in many parts of the world, as well as by many chefs.

I'm not really familiar with beef heart. Does it have a texture and flavor similar to traditional steak, or is it more like liver? I'm all about stretching the meat dollar. It's competing with alcohol for the highest dollar thing on my grocery shopping list.

I don't get why people are afraid of eating a beef heart... it's, like every other part we eat on a beef, a muscle! it can be unappealing at first, but give it a try and you'll be surprised.
I'm 22 and have been eating beef heart my whole life! it's so good prepared as a boeuf bourguignon in the slow cooker, served with mashed potatoes or rice and a lot of vegetables. I thank my parents to have shown us (my brothers and I) the value of having something to eat, even if people treat you like a fool when you say it's your favorite meal! BTW, in Quebec, beef heart is so unpopular that your butcher will sell it to you for nothing...

Thanks for posting more of these kinds of "weird meat" recipes and articles. I'm vegetarian, but I like seeing people adopting a more holistic approach to eating meat.

In my opinion, if you want to eat meat you shouldn't close yourself off to any part of the animal before you've tried it. If you have tried heart and don't like it, fine! If you won't try it because it's a heart, then how can you rationalize eating the ribs, legs, thighs, butt etc? All of it is crazy disgusting to me, but I respect carnivores who don't discriminate based on the way part of the inside of a cow looks.

Speaking for myself, I'd probably eat that salad, which looks delicious, but a horrifying biology lab experience in 11th grade will keep me from ever, ever, ever trying to prepare beef heart from scratch.

So beef heart tastes good then? I would expect it to be tough (maybe I'm just thinking of the scene in Game of Thrones were Danaerys eats the horse heart). As long as it tastes good, I'm in.

I got some chopped beef heart from Tesco (UK) last week and threw it in a stew. I also pan fried a few pieces just to see what it is like, it's actually quite tender, with a very lean and firm texture. The texture is definitely more like tongue and less like liver (not surprisingly, as it's a muscle), but even firmer and finer than tongue. The flavour is meaty, but more of a juicy kind of meaty (think a rare fillet steak) rather than a fatty kind of meaty (e.g. silverside). After prolonged cooking it's a little tougher in texture, but the flavour is less raw. I'll buy more if I see it again!

I might try it, but I'm a bit intimidated by the idea of cutting up the whole heart, and worried that it might turn out tough.

And that huge, raw heart picture kind of grossed me out...seriously, you wouldn't sell anyone on trying a lengua burrito by showing them a picture of a whole, raw beef tongue. This is no different.

I guess I'm weird...I like the photo of the beef heart...

Never had beef heart before and for some reason, I always thought I would dislike it as much as I dislike liver. Duh, it's a muscle, it's not going to have that same texture that turns me off!

Will have to try it. Been wanting to go to Incanto...I'm sure the Odds & Ends board will be the place to look for it!

I'm a vegetarian now, but when I ate meat, I LOVED hearts. The heart was my favorite part of a chicken. SO good! I'd eat that if I ate meat.

No, beef heart does not have an 'offaly' taste. It's a bit like flank or skirt steak, a bit tough so benefits from a slow braise with aromatics.

Duck hearts are delicious too.

Mamma was a butcher, so I've had most of the organ meats, and I tend not to like them. I did have a beef heart pie at a party recently that was decent, but the texture of organ meats gets to me. I just don't like it.

Regarding hiding the truth from dinner guests: DON'T DO IT. That is cruel and wrong. I've actually gotten into some pretty serious arguments with friends who try to get me to eat or drink things and refuse to tell me what it is. I'll try just about anything, so telling me won't put me off, but refusing to tell me gets an automatic "No thank you." And if they get mad, it's their issue to deal with.

I do not want to eat beef heart and that looks disgusting. Please feel free to judge.

I've never seen it for sale in my area...will have to ask next time I shop...I'm interested in trying it, especially if it's cheap

@tariqata I had that same bio lab experience!

That being said, this looks good. I guess I'm in the group that doesn't see how this is any grosser than a filet, but then I LOVE sweetbreads.

Ok, curiosity killed the cat: what is this traumatizing lab experiment that @tariqata & @michelleb speak of?

I think, if you are a meat eater, you shouldn't be too turned off by this. Animals die for humans' to eat every day - the least we can do is create less waste.
The picture (raw in bag) is a little unappealing, but the recipe sounds (and looks) lovely!

@GeekyHooker: cow heart dissections. (In my class, at least, the problem wasn't so much with the dissection part of the deal as it was with whatever was done to preserve the hearts. Whatever it was, was ... not particularly successful.)

@tariqata: Ah ok, I was picturing some sort of science experiment gone horribly wrong!

Heart never seems to soften as well as tongue does. So I prefer to grind heart, and mix it with ground short rib meat to make meatballs or cottage pie.

Heart never seems to soften as well as tongue does. So I prefer to grind heart, and mix it with ground short rib meat to make meatballs or cottage pie.

Years ago, I was married to a guy whose folks raised cattle. His mom thought it would be amusing to give me a heart to prepare, and as frugal as I am, I couldn't just discard it - I made chili. The heart meat, as it is a very strong muscle, is very dense, and has an intensely concentrated beef flavor. I can't feature how it could be construed as a substitute for steak, as it is, of course, tough. We found it to have a rather "bouncy" texture, and I ended up fishing out all the larger chunks, and dicing them smaller. If you are dedicated to the notion of cooking with heart, I would recommend a very small dice, if you have the stomach for it. Use a long, slow cooking process - a slow cooker at a low temp would probably be best, as the braise would tenderize this muscley meat. I still look back on this experience, and shake my head. The rites of passage into some families are challenging. I'm sure my in-laws were giggling to one another when they sent us home with that little prize.

I've had marinated, grilled beef heart (anticuchos) a number of times, and it is completely delicious. Really beefy taste! If I saw beef heart in the grocery, I'd be tempted to try making it at home :)

hmm, if it's like tongue you can count me in. I love a well cooked beef tongue. Beef tongue tacos- the best!

I rarely eat red meat so when I do, I have no issue spending for a good steak. Eating heart sounds sad to me....emotional eating, I suppose. I'd be pissed if someone served me anything out of the ordinary and didn't tell me/told me after (like a previous poster suggested). That's just bad manners.

Beef heart is quite good. I've also eaten it from childhood. Waste not, want not, nose to tail, nothing wasted but the moo (or squeal, in the case of pork), whatever way it's phrased, using the whole animal is healthful, ecologically sound, and frugal. Does that mean I want to make chitterlings or haggis part of my mainstay? Lol! No, not likely. I am not fond of pig brains, either, but at least I was willing to try them a couple of different ways, before simply rejecting them out of hand. Turn my nose up at the mere idea of them, without even trying them? I don't think so. But then, that's me. *shrug*

I tried it once at a peruvian restaurant, it tastes pretty much like steak.

I have no problems with beef heart tho' I have yet to work with it. Although I've seen Chris Consentino talk about how to do it on his blog.

I'm all for nose to tail eating....I'm also in agreement w/ other commenters that if you don't understand where or what your food is all about it's time to question your food habits...

While I've never knowingly eaten beef heart, I can't say that I'm opposed to it. I've eaten, and loved, duck heart (tastes like duck concentrate) on countless occasions so why not beef heart.

This just proves people are afraid of SEEING what they are eating. If they only posted the picture of the cooked dish, no one would have been the wiser. People are far to detached from their food sources these days... where did you think the rest of the meat came from? Just because that rib-eye steak is cleanly sliced for your viewing pleasure makes it no less from the RIBS OF AN ANIMAL!

Buck up and eat it - it's delicious. Haven't any of you heard of nose to tail eating? Why waste the poor animal's parts because you're afraid of how it looks freshly cut?

My grandmother used to make corned beef tongue. She'd slice it up thin and no one had any idea. It was way more tender and juicy then brisket (front-chest) cut anyway.

The title and recipe might be misleading. Because it's so lean, beef heart is quite tough and chewy. It's not really an alternative to fat-marbled rib-eye or sirloin steak, which would be tender if served medium rare, as in the photo. It's delicious slow braised in dark soy, with star anise, lots of ginger and sugar, then sliced very thinly. I'm wondering if it would be nice salted and simmered for a few hours in duck fat, then sliced, sauteed and tossed into a salad, like duck gizzards.

We get grass-fed beef from a local farmer who throws in extra organ meats for the cost of processing, often only 50 cents a pound. Stuffed beef hearts in the crock pot are my family's new favorite. Unfortunately, everyone else is discovering this low-cost succulent meat, so we don't always get any. You have to try it to believe how wonderful it is. We still have a few tongues in the freezer, though. Just can't bring myself to eat them. It's all psychological.