cooking beef cheek

annamcmahon

I have a beef cheek marinating in red wine. Other than cooking it for ages in the wine is there anything else I can do with it? I have loads of root veg and a good selection of spices

Seaneh

Braising it is the only way to go really. Worth the time and effort.
Sear it on a stupidly hot heavy pan for about 30 seconds on all sides before braising.
I wouldn't cook it in just wine though. 2 parts beef stock to 1 part red wine would be nice, chuck in some of the root veggies (like, an onion, a carrot, stick of celary, etc) and some sage, time and rosemary, a few whole cloves of garlic, a few whole pepper corns and a good pinch of salt.
Cook it for as long as your have patience for at as low as you can (slow cooker, high for 5 hours, low over night/until dinner the next day would be epic), remove the cheeks, strain the sauce, discard the veggies (they will be mush by now), thicken the sauce with beurre manié in a saucepan on medium heat .
Serve the cheek in a deep plate/paste bowl on creamy mash with the rest of the root veg (roasted would be great) and ladle the thickened sauce over it all.

If you have celeriac, make a mash of half potato and half celeriac and a little bit of horse radish (if you have some), would work perfectly with the big flavours of the beef and wine.

annamcmahon

Thanks. I was planning to cook it as you described above but wondering if there were any other flavours I could add. I hope to leave it for 8hrs at 140oc. Thinking mash and cabbage would be good with it.

Jezek

Bay and garlic will be nice with it. (a small cinnamon stick thrown in for a while could be a good secret ingredient)

endacl

Seaneh wrote: »

Braising it is the only way to go really. Worth the time and effort.
Sear it on a stupidly hot heavy pan for about 30 seconds on all sides before braising.
I wouldn't cook it in just wine though. 2 parts beef stock to 1 part red wine would be nice, chuck in some of the root veggies (like, an onion, a carrot, stick of celary, etc) and some sage, time and rosemary, a few whole cloves of garlic, a few whole pepper corns and a good pinch of salt.
Cook it for as long as your have patience for at as low as you can (slow cooker, high for 5 hours, low over night/until dinner the next day would be epic), remove the cheeks, strain the sauce, discard the veggies (they will be mush by now), thicken the sauce with beurre manié in a saucepan on medium heat .
Serve the cheek in a deep plate/paste bowl on creamy mash with the rest of the root veg (roasted would be great) and ladle the thickened sauce over it all.

If you have celeriac, make a mash of half potato and half celeriac and a little bit of horse radish (if you have some), would work perfectly with the big flavours of the beef and wine.

Thanks for that. Hungry now. Nothing in the fridge.

:mad:

lordstilton

http://food52.com/recipes/2731-barbacoa-beef-cheek-tacos top notch tacos.

annamcmahon

In the end I fried onion, garlic, celery, carrot and turnips and added the cheek, red wine, bay and beef stock. I cooked it for 7.5hours. It fell apart and was delicious with some onion jam and cabbage. The liquid had evaporated so I blitzed the veg and mixed it with mash and made potato cakes. It was a tasty dinner.