Recipe: Broken-Ox-Hearted

This is a recipe for getting over heartbreak. I can take no credit for the original source recipe of this recipe, I have only fiddled about with it. The recipe belonged to my great-great-grandfather, whose mother used to cook it for him anyhow. He grew up in Wakefield, Yorkshire, not too far from the River Calder. Now it’s been said that the cows, and especially the oxen, that drink from the river Calder, have real big hearts.  They swell to bursting with all kind of kinds of bovine goodness.

As a young man, my great-great-grandfather would go down on the river, as fly fishing was a particular fancy of his. I won’t go in to the details but one day he come home with a face like a pug’s ass and his mother says to him, “what’s up?”. He replies, “Mother, shoot me now lest I wake another dawn for my heart has been broke,”

“Oh, I’ve got just the thing for that,” she replied.

She reaches into the larder, grabs a jar of thinly sliced ox hearts that had been marinading in vinegar, and fries him a couple up and slips then on to bread. He takes one bite and the tears in his heart begin to mend.

Ingredients:

Ox Heart (500g) — If you can’t get to Wakefield I buy my ox hearts from Asda.

Fish Sauce — 4 tbsp

Veg oil — 1 splash

Garlic — 4 chopped cloves

Lime — Juice and zest of 1

Rice Wine Vinegar — 1/2 tbsp

Method:

Slice the hearts as thin as you can, you want them to be the size of a bit of back bacon. Then combine the rest of the ingredients and mix them up in a bowl. Cover the hearts with mix, or marinade, and place in an airtight container. Leave overnight in the fridge. Fry them for 30–60 seconds a side in a hot pan for the following dinner, or when next heartbroken. Goes well with bread or rice dish, spuds are nice as well.