To Peruvians, there’s nothing like the pure flavor of corazón, or beef heart. It tastes almost like a really good steak only without the fat getting in the way, and has a slight chewiness. It’s the most traditional, and popular, anticucho in Lima.
In high school, I would sometimes make anticuchos del corazón, traditional beef heart anticuchos, to sell for pocket money. One weekend, I went a little overboard and rented the entire first floor of an old building where I could have an anticuchada—basically, an anticucho pop-up party. I knocked on all the doors around our neighborhood, thinking I’d maybe sell a few dozen tickets, and somehow managed to sell more than one hundred. ¡Chevere!
I boiled up big pots of potatoes and recruited friends to help me skewer all of the beef heart and made sure to have plenty of beer around. (Everyone is happy if there is enough beer.) It turned out to be a really fantastic party with plenty of great food and fun.
I am always surprised to find that beef heart is often unchartered giblet territory to many people in the United States. It’s really very easy to cook—and delicious—just avoid cooking it too long, or it will become tough. You can buy the heart whole or already cleaned and cut into large pieces, like any other beef cut (I recommend the latter if you’ve never cooked with beef heart before). If you find a whole heart from your local butcher (also check Latin markets), you need to clean and trim it well before marinating the meat. If you’ve never done it, it’s pretty eye-opening to saw off the arteries and sinew from the giant muscle that gives us all life. After a while, it becomes sort of therapeutic, and you really appreciate how much work goes into living.
1 If you bought a whole heart (usually 4 to 6 pounds), use a very sharp knife to trim off all of the fat, sinew, and veins, including inside the heart. It’s a big job, so be patient. When you finish, the heart should look like a nice, bright red piece of beef steak. If you manage to find trimmed heart from a fancy butcher, count on about 3 pounds to equal a trimmed heart. Slice the heart into small strips about 2 inches long by ¾ inch thick.
2 Put the meat in a single layer in a casserole dish and make a double batch (about 2 cups) of Anticucho Sauce (page 112). Pour about 1½ cups of the sauce on top so the meat is completely covered (reserving the remaining ½ cup sauce for serving). Cover and refrigerate the heart for at least 1 day, 2 days if you can, and flip the meat once while it marinates.
3 Remove the meat from the refrigerator a good 1 to 2 hours prior to grilling. Prepare a regular or hibachi grill for direct, high-heat cooking. Weave 3 or 4 strips of beef heart like ribbon candy onto the end of about 12 long or 24 shorter metal or bamboo skewers, or however many you need. The meat should be tightly bunched around the skewer.
4 When the grill is very hot, cook a few skewers of meat at a time. The bottom side should get nice and seared after 3 to 4 minutes. Flip the skewers and continue to grill the heart until it is seared on the other side but still medium-rare, about 2 minutes more. You don’t want to overcook the meat, or it will be tough. When you finish grilling all of the heart, serve it with the reserved anticucho sauce.
Serves about 12