Tried heart

wncdeerhunter

Old Mossy Horns
Cut in strips, Marinated in Dales, salt/pepper, breaded in flour, then fried in bacon grease with onions.

I like good chicken livers, and this is just likes milder liver.

Very good.
 

smith-n-stokes

Old Mossy Horns
My father in law used to cook it for us. It was pretty good. Just can't get my wife to cook it... Yet.


Sent from wherever I was at the time.
 

robertc

Eight Pointer
Ate it many times. One year saved several and had a big breakfast at my shop after a Saturday hunt. Pounded them out, batter and fried them. Served them on biscuits. Had about 12 hunters Eatting that morning. One of them ask "what did you do with them damn hearts" I laugh and said y'all are Eatting them. They thought it was tenderloin.
 

BarSinister

Old Mossy Horns
Cut in strips, Marinated in Dales, salt/pepper, breaded in flour, then fried in bacon grease with onions.

I took a Dr Scholl out of my work boot and cooked like this and it was good too. Lol.

J/K of course. Did you prepare it any special way other than cutting it into strips? I might give it a try.
 

smith-n-stokes

Old Mossy Horns
Just make sure you cut out the veins/arteries... They are a little chewey [emoji15]. Don't ask how I know.


Sent from wherever I was at the time.
 

woodmoose

Administrator
Staff member
Contributor
I had some tonight,,,,lightly seasoned with salt and pepper and sautéed in a hot pan with a little butter,,,,no need to mask such a great piece of the animal!
 

LanceR

Six Pointer
Contributor
I know this is reviving an older thread but I didn't want to clutter the forum up with a new thread on the same subject.


My wife and one of her brothers love chicken and turkey hearts to the point where they used to fight over them when they were kids. When we have processed meat birds she wanted all the hearts saved from them, too. But for years no one in our family eat deer hearts so they either got discarded or went to the dogs and cat.

For a few years now I've hunted in an all archery suburban deer management program in addition to recreational deer hunting. We butcher a few for our own freezer and I've donated a large number of deer to individuals and to the NY Venison Donation Coalition so that they would go to the needy. This year, as usual, if the deer was going to an individual they got the heart if they wanted it but we soon had several "orphaned" hearts vacuum packed and in the freezers.

Part way through the three month deer management program (with me dropping as many as three deer a week) my wife decides that she's going to try a deer heart and so she cleaned and prepped the next heart I brought home.

After trimming the connective tissue and blood vessels from the top of the heart she cleans them again and slices them cross-ways into rings. She then dredges the rings in seasoned flour and sautes them just until lightly browned. She makes a quick red wine and onion (or shallot) pan sauce by sweating some chopped onion and adding red wine which then gets reduced a bit and thickened with a few pats of cold butter whisked in at the end while the meat rests.

It is hands down the most tender venison we've ever had. Even a rare tenderloin from a young deer is no where near as tender.

So, now I have a a challenge, a mission and a mandate. I can arrow all the deer I want and give them to whomever I want but she gets the hearts. She doesn't even mind that about 3/4 of them have arrow holes through them. She says the hole makes it easier to get into them to clean them. And she says that when I gun hunt again I'll have to hold a few inches higher to get both lungs but hopefully spare the heart.

Interestingly, she used to come no closer to the heart and liver than watching me clean them and prep them for vacuum packing. Now she has the bag with them out of my pack and is cleaning them before I have all my play clothes hung up and my archery gear stowed. She even wants me to wait to clean my arrows at home so she can look at the blood, hair and tissue on them to learn more about arrow placement and "reading" arrows. I'm sure she'll never want to go hunting but it's funny how little things string together so that even without her ever having been in the field hunting she gets more involved in and interested in my hunting every year.

If there is a moral to the story it is this: If you haven't tried deer heart you really ought to give it a shot. (no pun intended) Your spouse may just decide that you need to do more hunting after all.......


Lance
 
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Tipmoose

Administrator
Staff member
Contributor
Now that's a cool story. My gf listened to me read it and said she had a whole bag of Nope right here for me. lol. She hates it when I get fried gizzards from Stephensons so an entire deer heart would push her right over the edge.
 

LanceR

Six Pointer
Contributor
"I love it but my wife loves it more so we fight over the last piece "

I'll eat it but the two most dangerous places in the People's Republic of New York are between Chuck Schumer and a camera and between my wife and a deer heart...... and she's a pretty darn good pistol shot!


In prep for our move to Stokes County in a month or so one of our sons and his wife visited for the weekend and we made a hair under 100 pounds of venison brats, cheese brats, Italian, Polish sausage, Frankfurters and Coney Island Hots. We still have about 35 pounds of bagged meat to decide whether to make more sausage or burger.

While rooting through the chest freezer I counted 6 or 7 hearts and I suspect there are more in the freezers of two of our sons who took our overflow when our chest freezer broke a while back. We gave away quite a few deer last year but kept a lot of the hearts and also kept most of the livers for venison liverwurst and Braunschweiger. I'll have to tell the boss that she's slacking on deer hearts.

We bought a really big chest freezer for the NC place and it's empty except for a few milk jugs of ice. I'm coming down next week with a load and bringing some coolers full of critter parts.


Lance
 

JONOV

Twelve Pointer
"I love it but my wife loves it more so we fight over the last piece "

I'll eat it but the two most dangerous places in the People's Republic of New York are between Chuck Schumer and a camera and between my wife and a deer heart...... and she's a pretty darn good pistol shot!


In prep for our move to Stokes County in a month or so one of our sons and his wife visited for the weekend and we made a hair under 100 pounds of venison brats, cheese brats, Italian, Polish sausage, Frankfurters and Coney Island Hots. We still have about 35 pounds of bagged meat to decide whether to make more sausage or burger.

While rooting through the chest freezer I counted 6 or 7 hearts and I suspect there are more in the freezers of two of our sons who took our overflow when our chest freezer broke a while back. We gave away quite a few deer last year but kept a lot of the hearts and also kept most of the livers for venison liverwurst and Braunschweiger. I'll have to tell the boss that she's slacking on deer hearts.

We bought a really big chest freezer for the NC place and it's empty except for a few milk jugs of ice. I'm coming down next week with a load and bringing some coolers full of critter parts.


Lance

That's great.

Everyone laughs at me at duck camp as I collect all the hearts and take them back home. A red wine and shallot reduction with mushrooms and sauteed duck hearts is some good eats.

I like venison hearts too but haven't cooked them as described here.
 

LanceR

Six Pointer
Contributor
That's great.

Everyone laughs at me at duck camp as I collect all the hearts and take them back home. A red wine and shallot reduction with mushrooms and sauteed duck hearts is some good eats.

I like venison hearts too but haven't cooked them as described here.

Duck hearts. eh? I never thought about it but I've taken few ducks but have dropped a slew of geese. And you wait to tell me a few months after the 25 bird a day snow goose season closes. Some friend you are! :rolleyes: Nancy dosen't let a chicken or turkey heart get away either so I better not let her start thinking of the hundereds of discarded goose hearts around here......
 

smith-n-stokes

Old Mossy Horns
My father in law used to de-vein and cook deer hearts. Pretty good stuff. One of the many things I miss about him....


Sent from wherever I was at the time...
 
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