Palm Heart (Palmito) variations

I had a great cooking experience yesterday evening – learning how to take the already delicious Palm Hearts to new heights. I love Palm Hearts even just the way they are preserved and straight out the can and prepare them in a salad with tomato, avocado, sliced onions, a vinaigrette dressing and toped with fresh coriander.

But Brazil is one of the largest producers of Palm Hearts, besides Costa Rica, so we are lucky not only to get the canned varieties but as well the fresh stuff. Please make sure to by the sustainable once to avoid cutting underaged trees and poor working conditions!

We worked both with fresh and preserved Palm Hearts in our cooking class yesterday.

Oven roasted fresh Palm Hearts with herbed butter (for 2)

• 300-400 g of fresh Palm Hearts, you can use canned nice large once
• 100g salted butter
• 1 garlic clove pressed
• handfull of fresh herbs very finely chopped
• capers
• ciabatta or other bread sliced
• olive oil, salt and pepper

Wrap the Palm Hearts in tin foil and roast in 200C oven for about 40-50 minutes (tinned once just drain). In a saucepan melt the butter, add the garlic, capers and the fresh herbs and over low heat allow to come together. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the bread with some olive oil and roast in the oven for some minutes. When the Palm Hearts are ready, remove, cut into wedges, drizzle with the herb butter and garnish with the toasted bread (the tinned once you can heat slowly in the butter) and some more fresh herbs. Great starter:

Palm Heart Cannelloni – a recipe that allow for lots of variations:

For two we used:

• 4 large canned Palm Hearts
• 4 sliced of mozzarella cheese
• 4 slices of ham
• 2 tbs of butter
• 2tbs flour
• 1 small finely diced onion
• 400ml milk and/or cream
• salt, pepper, nutmeg

Melt the butter in a saucepan and slowly fry the onion until soft. Add the flour, mixing very well, slowly add the milk while stirring very well to avoid any lumps. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and simmer until nice and creamy.

Roll the Palm Hearts into a slice of cheese and ham each, place in an ovenproof dish and top with the white sauce and some freshly grated parmesan. Bake in 200C oven for about 15-20 minutes and it looks like this:

I will try this recipe with Parma ham and a variation of cheeses such as gorgonzola or brie. But it makes a great hearty starter served with some fresh bread to scoop up the nice sauce. Enjoy!