Stumped for a holiday appetizer? If you want to wow your guests, here is a recipe for venison heart bruschetta that they will gobble-up and will leave them wondering why didn’t try heart sooner.
Venison backstrap tastes amazing when it’s fresh and when it’s cooked right. Organ meats, on the other hand, have gotten a bad rap in the past, and are the most-often discarded parts of the animal. I have to admit that I wasn’t a big fan of organ meats. I wasn’t raised eating them, and I don’t have an unabashedly courageous palate. But with combo Master Chefs and Outdoorsmen like Andrew Zimmern, Ben Ford, Hank Shaw, and Toufik Halimi, all promoting the filet-mignon-like succulence of charred rare venison heart, I hiked up my britches and decided to give it go.
The first weekend in November marked Minnesota’s firearms opener. As luck would have it, my brother bagged a large doe just before dusk on the first day. And, he saved the heart.
Most important thing to do with venison heart is to get it chilled promptly. Wisely, my brother put the heart in zip plastic bag immediately after field dressing and stashed it, blood and all, on ice in a cooler. But make sure you don’t actually freeze it—just chill it. A heart on ice can remain fresh for cooking for 48 to 72 hours.
Once home, I washed it under cold water to get most of the blood off, and then submerged it in ice water. While submerged, you want to squeeze several times to pump the remaining blood out of the valves and arteries.
Next, trim off the valves and connective tissue. You can save that and throw it in with the meat that’s being ground into sausage, brats, or wieners. For step-by-step photo instructions on how to prepare the heart, click here.
Outdoorsman and French master chef Toufik Halimi offered to prepare venison heart bruschetta to demonstrate how easy heart is to cook, and how sublime it tastes when done correctly. Their bruschetta recipe could easily be made in deer camp, but we ended up making it in the kitchen due to the first winter storm of the season slamming into the state and dropping more than 16 inches of snow.
Whitetails in Minnesota have a plentiful food supply with nitrogen rich alfalfa, stands of corn, and dropped grains readily available, so the gamey flavor of venison here is diminished. Chef Halimi therefore chose simple and readily available ingredients to enhance the slight rustic gaminess.
The results were perfect. The whisper of game flavor in the seared heart was mouth watering; the robust olive oil, the onion, mustards, watercress combined to produce a flavor fusion and depth I've never experienced with other cuts of venison. The texture was not weird at all. It was not “livery,” or sinewy, or chewy. It is clear why heart is often likened to filet mignon. The key, like all the chefs emphasize, is searing rare to medium-rare—at the most. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt when a master chef is running the kitchen.
For the step-by-step venison heart bruschetta recipe, click here.
For a step-by-step guide to preparing heart, click here.
For more details on how to cook heart, click here.
From left: Toufik Halami, executive chef and culinary instructor, CCE, CEC, at Le Cordon Bleu, Krissie Mason, and Andrew Mason, Le Cordon Bleu culinary student. Special thanks to Randy Stacy (not pictured) for the fresh venison heart. Photo by Mari Mason.
Krissie Mason is a writer, photographer, and owner of Scratch+Holler; a hybrid content creation and public relations firm specializing in the outdoors. In her free time she skips stones, builds campfires, and enjoys shooting sports, fishing, camping, hiking, and kayaking. You can reach her at krissie@scratchandholler.com.
