Chicken Hearts

We continue to be in shock at the cost of living in Switzerland.  While in quarantine we had groceries delivered from Coop which was very convenient but expensive!  So expensive that I didn't like anything online but chicken.  Bought a whole chicken for 12 Swiss francs to make soup and eat the breast meat for sandwiches.

Was happy to pay a fortune for broccoli and these cute little red cabbages.  Figured they'd keep awhile in the refrigerator.  David scoured everything on sale and suggested we buy funnel.  What is funnel?  Oh fennel.  David we've never bought fennel in our lives why would we buy it now?  Because its on sale.

The only other meat that appealed to me/was affordable was chicken hearts, yes chicken hearts.

I have fond memories of grilled chicken hearts in the Brazilian rodizio or Japanese Izakaya (or is it yakatori?).  Nice and grilled with lots of sea salt and pepper, crispy outside and soft inside.  I remember my mother telling me to clean them well, squish all the blood out which I did.  We never ate the heart (nor gizzard) though just put it in soup.  I always ate the chicken liver, love it!  Full of iron too (+ cholesterol).

Thought I'd get adventurous and try the oven.  Becoming an expert in hieroglyphics and images.  There are a million user manuals here but none seem to be in English so I translated from French.  There's a symbol for only fire on top, only fire on bottom, fire on both top and bottom, etc. etc.  Then there was the job of converting from Celsius to Fahrenheit, & believe it or not I found a recipe for grilled chicken hearts.  Never mind, a little jetlagged - don't want to start a fire, go back to stir-frying the old fashioned way.  At least I now had a mastery of the induction oven.

I sautéed the chicken hearts and made sure they were very cooked for fear of mad cow disease or any other organ meat defect.  Surprisingly good!  David refused to eat it because he said it was disgusting and unsanitary.  OMG do I have to eat this whole package by myself?  I cooked the rest of the package, mixed it with the cabbage and put it in the refrigerator.

 

Next day the chicken hearts absorbed the purple color from the cabbage and became a beautiful blue.

Chicken hearts looked like chocolate marbled malted eggs.  Like the earth from afar.  So weird, they must have so many veins and arteries and soaked in all of the purple color.  It was actually beautiful.  Guess that's how the blood gets circulated.

Don't think I'll be buying these again, but can't wait to go to the Japanese Yakatori.