Camp Heart and Onions
The organ meat you already packed out, trimmed, pounded thin, and fried with onions the night of the kill.
- calories
- 340
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 57
- protein
- 32 g
- serves
- 3, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 25 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Campfire coals
- Grill grate
- Liquid fuel
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Day one only
- Basic
Ingredients
| Deer or elk heart | 1 whole | elk is milder than deer; chill it in the cooler as soon as you can |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow onion | 1 large | sliced thick so it does not vanish |
| Apple | 1 | optional, sliced; cuts the iron flavor |
| Cooking oil | 2 tbsp | |
| Salt and coarse pepper | to taste |
Method
- Split the heart open and cut out the valves, the white connective tissue, and any clotted blood. What is left is clean muscle.
- Lay the pieces flat and beat them thin with the back of a knife handle or a smooth rock in a bag. Thin is the whole point.
- Slice into strips about a finger wide. Salt and pepper them.
- Get the pan hot over coals or a grate. Oil, then onions, and cook until they go soft and brown at the edges. Add apple slices for the last two minutes.
- Push the onions aside and lay in the heart. Two minutes a side, no longer. Pull it while the center is still pink.
- Stir everything together in the pan and eat straight out of it.
Heart is not offal in the way liver is. It is a working muscle, lean and dense, and it fails the same way a cheap steak fails: overcooked and chewed forever. Pounding it flat and cooking it fast fixes both problems at once. Two minutes a side is not a suggestion.
The onions are doing more than flavor. Their sugar browns and coats the meat, which softens the mineral edge that puts people off organs the first time. Apple pushes that further if you want it. Trimming matters more than seasoning here — every piece of valve or silverskin you leave in is a piece you will spit out later.
This is a kill-day meal. It travels in a cooler, not a pack, and it does not wait.
Packing
Heart goes in a zip bag inside the cooler, on ice, the day it comes off the animal. Onion, apple, and a small oil bottle live in the food bin. Nothing here keeps past the first night or two.
Variations
- Liver works the same way once the membrane is peeled off, but it needs the apple more than the heart does.
- A splash of vinegar or a squeezed lime in the pan at the end brightens the whole thing.
- Slice it thinner and roll it into tortillas with hot sauce.
https://www.hunttalk.com/threads/anyone-eat.207563