Beef heart

Squeeze, you gave me quit a giggle with your simple injection comment. All I could think of was at least the cow didn't have any coronary artery disease. Hope you enjoy your creation. Maybe a buttermilk soak would tenderize it?????

Heart (and tongue) are too often overlooked. I do a few every year. I like to brine them overnight, which reduces some of "tang." Marinades work well, but I usually just brush some oil on to hold the rub. Cleaning off all the connective filaments can be a pain, but the remaining meat makes some of the leanest sandwich slices around. Last one I had had a large suet fat cap. I rendered that down. Makes for a great fryinh oil. Haven't tried using it in pastry, but I'm told suet makes some of the flakiest crusts ever.

I boil or pressure cook the tongue first. I don't have a set time, but long enough to turn it gray all over. Then use a very sharp knife to peel away the outside skin, which is still just about as tough as leather. Also check for bits of bone at the root.

Because the back of the tongue is much thicker than the front, I cut the tongue into about equal volume chunks, three or four. Then rub and cook lo-n-slo like anything with lots of collagen. It takes smoke very well, so I don't use much. Some portions will have so much gell that thin slices are slightly translucent. Great for sandwiches.

Suet is a very hard kind of fat, and different from muscle fat. Most is found around the kidneys. When rendered, is called tallow. It has a very high smoke point for animal oils, and so is great for frying 'taters. It is indeed very high in calories. It is/was the best fat for making pemmican, which was the standard journey food for native Americans, voyageurs,trappers, etc.

Lard is from pork fat, preferably from back fat. It is healthier in food than butter. It is lower in saturated fat, higher in monounsaturated fat than butter, and has some protein. (Most commercial lard is hydrogenated, which ruins it healthwise.) Both tallow and lard are good for flaky pastry dough because they don't melt at room temperature. So little bits are easily mixed in with the flour, which then puff up the dough when cooked.

Once upon a time, when there wasn't so much energy dense processed food, both tallow and lard were highly desirable. Although my mother eventually came to think it was disgusting, her big treat back in the 1920s was the day the lard man came around with fresh lard. She ate it an inch thick on bread. It was as close as she could get to ice-cream.