Braised Lamb hearts with zesty gremolata
Cost:£7.40 total – or £1.85 per portion
Prep time 25-35 mins
Oven time1.5-3 hours
Simple, delicious and terrifyingly cheap, this dish tastes like a very tender beef stew, but with the texture of beef fillet. My lamb’s hearts cost £1.26 for 4, and it’s odd that they aren’t eaten more often. My wife is a bit unadventurous when it comes to offal, and she was very wary of this dish until she tasted it, then she fell in love! Gremolata is an amazing Italian herb, garlic and lemon zest mixture added to stews after they’ve been cooked, which turns a simple, hearty dish into an explosion of taste. It’s so good that it feels like cheating!
Ingredients
4 lamb’s hearts
1 tbsp Plain flour
2 tbsp vegetable oil or non-virgin olive oil
600g root vegetables (a mixture of parsnips, carrots, Jerusalem artichokes is great) chopped into large chunks
Glass of wine (red or white – different flavourings, but both fab!)
600ml good chicken stock
250g small potatoes (peeled or not – its up to you)
6 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
3 Bay leaves
Stalks of parsley and thyme, tied into a bouquet garni
Salt & pepper
Gremolata Ingredients
Grated zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
Handful chopped mixed fresh thyme, rosemary and parsley (or both)
Method
The hearts only need very simple prep: a couple of tube/ventricle ends sit at the top – they go a couple of centimeters into the heart, and I usually cut them out. Don’t worry about making a smart job of it. Don’t cut off the little layers of fat that sit around the top– that’s fabulous stuff, and helps to moisten the dish.
Preheat the oven to 110C. Roll the hearts in flour. Take a heavy-bottomed casserole (or any good pan that will go in the oven), add the oil and put it onto a high heat until smoking hot. Briefly brown the hearts in the oil, turning to sear them all around for about 5 minutes. Remove the hearts and set aside, then add the chopped root veg to the pan and fry for 5 minutes.
Now season it and add everything else except the gremolata ingredients and whack the heat up. When it starts to simmer, put the lid on and transfer it to the oven. Braise it for a minimum of 1 ½ hours (max 3hrs), although the longer you cook it, the better and more melting it is. Whilst it’s cooking, prepare the gremolata ingredients and set aside in a bowl.
Remove from the oven and discard the bouquet garni. Using a slotted spoon, decant all the meat and veg to another bowl, leaving all the juices behind. Boil the juices for about 5-10 minutes until they have reduced to a good thick gravy, then serve the whole lot in wide bowls. Just before eating, scatter the gremolata over each bowl.
Options
•This is the basic braising technique for most cheaper, tougher cuts of meat such as lamb shanks, beef shin etc. Just throw the ingredients in and leave them to cook on a low heat - it really is that simple.
•If you have 3hrs or more at your disposal, carry on cooking the casserole but turn the heat down to 90C and only add the potatoes an hour before it’s ready (otherwise they disintegrate a little too much).
