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Venison Heart Bolognese

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Venison heart bolognese recipeI love coming up with creative ways to introduce people to eating offal, and venison heart Bolognese is one of my new favorites. Many recipes don’t, especially those designed for Americans, gut my Bolognese (as I was taught by my chef from Rome, Angelo) always incorporates a little bit of offal, typically chicken liver, but hearts are mild enough that after being ground you can substitute them for ground meat. Since the meat is stretched a little with the addition of vegetables and some belly or pancetta to add fat, it’s also a great way to stretch a heart or two so that it can feed a family for a meal.

You don’t need much aside from an hour or two of mostly unattended cooking, but a meat grinder is pretty important, and turns into a one-stop-shop for prep. You just push everything, hearts, belly, and vegetables through the grinder, then sweat and simmer for a few hours. You might be able to do something similar in a food processor, with a lot of care, but it would be putsy, and it will take a number of batches to get through it all, unless you have a large restaurant-style Robocoup, and even then, the texture will never be as even as when it’s put through the coarse die of a grinder. If you have a kitchen-aid mixer, I really like this metal meat grinder here.

Making the ragu is only the first step though. Like most slow-cooked things, the flavor improves after chilling and sitting for a bit, and the real magic happens when you know how to reheat the sauce like you’d get in a restaurant. Don’t get me wrong, the veni heart bolo will taste ok reheated on it’s own (with plenty of parmesan) but it will be a showstopper if you follow my instructions for restaurant plating–all you need is some canned tomato sauce or pureedl, strained canned tomatoes, a couple knobs of butter, and some parsley. See the photo gallery below for an example.

Venison heart bolognese
Start the pan off with tomato sauce.
Venison heart bolognese
Add the cooled ragu.

Venison heart bolognese
Add cooked spaghetti, parsley, parmesan and butter.
Venison heart bolognese
Toss to combine and season.

Venison heart bolognese
Plate with the sauce on top.
Venison heart bolognese recipe
Parmesan to finish.

Venison heart bolognese recipe
Print Recipe
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Venison Heart Bolognese

The classic Italian ragu is a great vehicle for under-loved venison hearts. Serves 4-6
Prep Time30 mins
Cook Time2 hrs
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Italian
Keyword: Bolognese, Corned Venison, Hearts, Spaghetti
Servings: 4

Equipment

  • Meat Grinder

Ingredients

Ragu

  • 2 lbs Venison heart preferably frozen--you can get away with a little more or less depending on the size of your heart(s).
  • 5 oz venison belly, or pork pancetta, cubed (optional)
  • 25 grams garlic cloves whole
  • 1 rib of celery chopped
  • 1 medium carrot chopped
  • 1 small onion chopped
  • 1 cup half and half
  • 1 cup dry white wine
  • 1 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes
  • ¼ cup tomato paste
  • 2 dried bay leaves
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme or substitute 1 teaspoon dried
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt plus more to taste
  • Fresh ground black pepper to taste

For serving

  • High quality parmesan cheese to taste, I like Grana padano
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 3/4 cup Tomato sauce
  • 8 oz dried spaghetti preferably a bronze extruded brand like Rustichella
  • 2 Tablespoons Fresh chopped Italian parsley to taste

Instructions

Ragu

  • Allow the hearts to thaw for 30 minutes on the counter, but do not thaw completely—having them frozen a bit will help them grind easily. Trim the goat hearts of any remaining central vein/aorta as well as excess fat at the top. Cube the hearts into pieces that can fit in the meat grinder, roughly 1-2 inch pieces, then freeze again.
  • Mix the hearts, belly or pancetta, garlic cloves and chopped vegetables, then pass all of it through a meat grinder on a coarse die. When you get to the end, add another celery stick or a couple pieces of carrot to the grinder to help get the meat mixture out, a piece of bread is good too.
  • Heat the oil in a wide braising or soup pot, then sweat the ground mixture until the pan is nearly dry. Add the remaining ingredients, bring the mixture to a simmer, then turn the heat to low and cook for 2 hours or until the sauce is thick. To serve, double check the seasoning, adjust as needed, stir in the butter and parsley, then ladle over cooked noodles with parmesan on the side.

To serve as you would eat in a restaurant.

  • For 4 servings, heat 3/4 cup of tomato puree in a pan, then add 2.5-3 cups of cooled ragu, heat through, double check the seasoning and adjust, add parmesan to taste along with 4

Notes

  • Don't use smoked bacon instead of the pancetta, the smoke flavor will change the dish. 
  • Any heart can be substituted for the venison. 

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Some nice wild enoki clones from @unkle_fungus Can Some nice wild enoki clones from @unkle_fungus Cant wait until these start popping up when the snow melts. The difference between the coloration of wild ones (pic 1) and cultivated that are white from the lack of sun (pic 2) is always interesting to compare. (The cultivated ones are a different species of Flammulina too). 

We’re really lucky to have such a vibrant community of small, local mushroom growers and related makers. Feel free to tag your favorite you like or one I should know about in the comments. 

#enokimushroom #mushroomgrowers #flammulinavelutipes #blanche #allthemushroomtags #wintermushrooms
Celebrated my birthday last night with a few stiff Celebrated my birthday last night with a few stiff spruce’n’sodas. The spruce tip liquor I collaborated on with @ida_graves_distillery drinks like a mildly piney gin. Dangerously easy to drink. #sprucetips #craftliquor #drinkatree #itsmybirthdaybitches #im25again
Social media can be a wall-to-wall, endless string Social media can be a wall-to-wall, endless string of triumphs. We all know reality isn’t like that, so with the snow melting here, I thought I’d share a funny maple season fail with you (at the time it was not funny).

I was making maple soda out of sap, sweetfern and syrup that I like. I’d kept the glass bottle of soda in the fridge for a couple weeks, waiting for a good time to get to it. I’d started the mother batch with a pinch of commercial champagne yeast, which is vigorous stuff. 

One night I got up and poured myself a glass of water, and sleepily forgot to close the fridge all the way, which increased the temp. A few hours later I woke up to what sounded like a grenade going off. 

The bottle exploded and the inside of the fridge, all its contents, and the floor were covered with sticky maple juice, and I spent the next two hours mopping and picking out shards of glass that had embedded themselves like shrapnel in the walls of the fridge. 

Now, I use plastic restaurant cambros to make carbonated drinks. 💫

#fermentationfails #fail #soda #fermentation #explosions #dontrythisathome
My chief editorial assistant about to do backflips My chief editorial assistant about to do backflips for smoked goat kidneys. 

If you would have asked me a few years ago if I would see myself writing recipes (and filming videos) on making dog treats I would have laughed. 

But, working with @shepherdsongfarm, trying to figure out creative, economical methods for butchery and whole carcass utilization for lamb and goat has pushed my creativity into new places. Grateful for that. 💫

If you get down on kidneys, I have a good version for humans on my site too. A good piece of charcuterie to know. 

Hand model @pgerasimo 

#grassfed #goat #eatmoregoat #kidneys #offal #dogtreats #rescuepitbull #editorialassistant
7pm ET tonight on @the_outdoor_channel I take @dan 7pm ET tonight on @the_outdoor_channel I take @danielvitalis hunting for mushrooms and pigeons in WI, then I cook dinner on the farm for @wild.fed, his outdoors series that shows that wild food is much more than just meat. 

If you don’t have the outdoor channel, you could use the free trial of @frndlytv that will let you watch it live. 

Finished dishes I did were pigeon brochettes with rams bacon, sunflower roulades and wild cherry sauce and pigeon, sweet corn and wild mushroom stew. 

#mushroomhunting #wildfed #foragerchef #outdoorchannel #pigeon #foraging
After watching an old episode of Munchies (see You After watching an old episode of Munchies (see YouTube/Vice) I scribbled down a prep for yellow foot chanterelles a Swedish food truck was making. They took flatbread (tonnebrod, but I use lefse, because 🇳🇴💪) piled high with hot yellowfeet and fresh kraut, mayo, Västerbotten cheese (fontina or Hushållsost are ok subs). 

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Props to @ingebretsens in Mpls for making their own lefse since my Norwegian Grandma wasn’t  around. I channeled her though. 

#midwestwinter #lefse #lefseforlife #youbetcha #oleandlenawouldbeproud #yellowfootchanterelles #wildmushrooms
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