Grilled Deer Heart Recipe - How to Cook Deer Heart | Hank Shaw (2024)

FAQs

What is the best way to cook venison heart? ›

Slice the muscle into ½-inch pieces. In a small bowl, combine flour, salt, pepper, and seasoning salt. Coat each piece of heart in flour mixture and place them in a greased skillet over low-medum heat. Add onions and cook covered for 15 minutes or until meat is heated to an internal temperature of 145ºF.

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.

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.

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.

Roast - A long, slow roast is a great way to enjoy deer heart. Once trimmed and opened, fill the heart with apple chunks, diced onion and garlic or a classic bread stuffing. Close the heart around the stuffing and truss with butcher twine. Bake, covered, with just a bit of broth, until cooked through.

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.

Deer heart is actually simple to make, is best eaten fresh not frozen, at least within a couple days of the harvest, and should be cooked medium rare to medium.

Heart meat is very lean and tasty with a slight chewy texture. It is one of the more mild flavored of all the organ meats. Venison Heart has around 22grams of protein per 3 ounces of serving. It's also a great source of bioavailable forms of thiamine, folate, selenium, phosphorus, zinc, CoQ10 and several B vitamins.

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.

Here's how to determine doneness without a thermometer. Gingerly poke a lean surface of the roast with your index finger. If the flesh yields easily, the meat is rare; more resistance means the meat is medium rare, and firm meat is well done. The same technique applies to steaks.

Why do people eat deer heart? ›

Deer hearts, as well as the hearts of other animals, are high in iron, zinc, selenium, and vitamins B2, B6, and B12. So, if you're feeling tired and run-down, or you have high blood pressure, eating heart regularly can help improve your health, and it can even boost your energy.

By ingesting the heart, it is thought that the hunter assimilates the animal's strength, courage, and vitality, forging a spiritual connection with the species and expressing gratitude for the sacrifice made. In some cultures, the ritual serves as a rite of passage or initiation into adulthood.

So the first thing I did was remove the heart from the deer when gutting her and place it in a ziploc bag. When I got home I put the bag in the refrigerator and it stayed there until the night before New Years.

Venison is high in essential amino acids and in addition, a rich source of thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, iron, and zinc. Venison meat is a perfect choice of protein for those who suffer from cardiovascular disease and are searching for low cholesterol and saturated fat protein choices.