In my openness to try new healthy foods,  I picked up a pork heart from my organic grass fed beef farmer on my visit to the organic farm. Today I'm going to tell you about my pork heart experience. Apparently I ate it as a kid, but I don't remember that of course.

I am sitting here eating my leftover pork heart dish and thought I should write about it because it is actually really good. So here it is, my first blog post.

I searched the Internet for a recipe and found two that seemed like they would be good. Naturally, I didn't have the ingredients and started making supper to late and ended up making my own creation.
Here are the two I found (but did not try) if you want to check them out.
nami-nami.blogspot.ca/2009/08/story-of-grilled-pigs-heart.html
en.kokotaru.com/2009/05/pig-heart-and-onion-stir-fried/

I took it my heart and sliced it as evenly as I could after removing the chewy connective tissue.  As I didn't have fish sauce, I marinated the heart slices in soy sauce and freshly ground pepper for about 1/2 an hour in the end. I think it could have gone longer but I was running late on supper. I sautéed the meat in a frying pan with some coconut oil until it seemed almost cooked. Then I removed the meat from the pan and set it aside. As I had no onion, I thought, what could I put in this. Well of course mushrooms, they go great with everything. I grabbed the sliced frozen mushrooms out of the freezer and threw a bunch in the pan.

As soon as you start cooking frozen mushroom, lots of liquid comes out so I decided to throw in some home dried onion flakes.  Lastly I added some powdered garlic instead of my frozen stuff as I was in a rush. To top it off I added a generous amount of cashew nuts.  When the mushrooms were almost done, the cooked heart was added back to finish cooking and voila it was finished. Surprisingly it was actually good. The heart has a good meaty flavour and the texture wasn't bad.  2 out of three kids liked it but to be fair, the 3rd kid doesn't much care for chewy textures. He is two and chews the food then spits it out if he can't chew it very well. Unfortunately my husband wasn't hungry that day and did not try the dish so I don't have his pickyish opinion, but I liked it and isn't that what matters?

From my reading, it seems you should braise the heart or cook it quickly. When cooking it quickly they say not to over cook it or else it will become chewy. I know that I didn't overlook mine because it did have a slight pink tinge to it on the thicker pieces.

After reheating it and eating it today, besides the soggy cashews, it was good! The chewynish reminded me of eating calamari and so didn't bother me in texture and the flavour was still great. I did revive it a little by adding more cashews and some cooked homegrown green beans left over from supper. Yum! My take on the heart is you can use it in most types of stirfries and it will taste good. Try it out for yourself and tell me how you cooked yours.

Many of you may prefer a sauce to coat your stir-fry. If that is you, i suggest some broth and a thickening agent to your liking.

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    I am a mom of four, a nurse and a wannabe homesteader from northern Alberta.

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