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Cupid is far from the adorable little curly-topped chubby love-bug we know from Valentine cards. He is the love child of Venus, the goddess of love and Mars, the god of war. His singular reason for being is to fight the never-ending war on love. He knows all too well that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, so he is armed to the teeth with a bow and quiver of love inducing arrows to help the opposites attract. But even a natural born thriller like Cupid has his back to the wall around Valentine’s day, so arm yourself with these love inducing flaming skewered hearts with sweet and hot honey mustard glaze.
All’s fair in love and war, so skip the predictable rose and bring home a dozen chicken hearts from Sunworks at Currie Barracks for Valentine’s day. Sweeten the deal with some Mead, the drink of the gods, which does double duty as a drink and is part of the glaze.
Share your heart with someone this Valentines.
INGREDIENTS
12 chicken hearts*
HONEY MUSTARD GLAZE
1/2 cup grainy mustard
¼ cup honey
¼ cup Mead**, or beer
6 small red potatoes
handful of green beans
3 Tbsp butter
salt and pepper
PROCEDURE
Fire up the barbecue to get it nice and hot.
Get the potatoes in a pot of cold water over high heat on the stove.
Whisk the mustard and honey in a medium bowl. Whisk in the mead to thin out the glaze. The rest of the mead is for drinking.
Set aside the glaze while you skewer the hearts. Metal skewers are ideal, but wooden skewers are fine and always benefit from a 20 minute soak.
Line up three chicken hearts on the end of each skewer with a centimeter between each heart to allow proper heat circulation.
Place them on a plate and season with salt and pepper. Grab your honey mustard glaze, a basting brush, your hearts and do a sexy sashay over to the barbecue.
Quickly give the hearts a little brush of the honey mustard glaze just before you toss them on the grill. Place the hearts on the grill with the handles sticking off the side, so they stay out of the line of fire to make flipping easy. Flip them every 3-4 minutes and apply a good slathering of glaze before each flip. Total cooking time might take up to 20-25 minutes. Pinch them for doneness, they should be firm, but not hard. No one wants a heart of stone. It’s okay if the outside gets charred, it adds a great flavour.
When the potatoes are tender (poke them with a skewer and if there is no resistance in the middle, they are done) toss in the green beans for one minute and drain the whole mess into a colander.
Serve two heart skewers with boiled potatoes and sautéed green beans with butter and loads of salt and pepper. Don’t forget to pour two brimming mugs of mead.
It’s a hearty dinner for two.
* Get a bag of about a dozen organic chicken hearts from Sunworks Farms in the Calgary Farmer’s market at Currie Barracks. www.sunworksfarm.com
** Mead is any alcohol made from fermented honey and can vary tremendously. I used Maxwell Mead, a sweet carbonated mead with 12.5% alc/vol. from these two Calgary CO-OP Liquor Stores: Midtown Market 1110, 11th Ave S.W. or South Trail at #50- 4307 130th Ave, S.E.. A Big Rock Honey Brown is an appropriate substitution.
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Oh dear gracious.
Look at those little skewered hearts. It’s far.too.clever for one holiday. Shall we not stretch Valentines to two? Anything to bring more Kitchen Scraps hilarity (and deliciosity) into our lives.
You’ve been posting like a maniac lately! How are you doing it? Whatever the secret, keep them coming! The recipes are divine, of course, but the artwork is so exquisitely laugh-out-loud and mesmerizing. Fantastique!
That book of yours is.going.to.rock. Cuz, after all…this blog of yours already does. Happy week!
Comment by Brooke February 11, 2009 @ 7:13 amPierre,
Comment by Stacey Snacks February 17, 2009 @ 12:16 amI recently ate duck hearts on a salad of frisee w/ dates and they were “interesting”.
Happy post Valentine’s day!