Recipe: Braised Beef cheeks

This recipe is from The Sunday Times. Yup, I regularly cut out the recipes featured on The Sunday Times and keep them in a folder. Most recipes are rather easy and from my experience, taste really good! This dish is definitely one of my favorites, the cheeks were very flavorful and so melt-in-your-mouth. All my guests and Hub love it too!

Note: I bought my frozen wagyu beef cheeks from Mmmm! at Square 2 (novena), and they cost about $20 per 450-480g, which could feed either 3 not-very-greedy people or 2 really greedy/hungry people.

Ingredients:

1 tsp dried parsley flakes

1/2 tsp dried thyme

2 bay leaves, coarsely chopped

1.25 L of red wine

130 g carrots, diced

150 g yellow onions, diced

50g celery, diced

4 cloves garlic, crushed with skin on

2 beef cheeks. 450g each

salt and pepper to taste

flour for dusting

1 tbs canola oil

10g butter

Method:

- If using frozen beef cheeks, do rem that they will take about 24 hrs to thaw in the fridge!

To marinate the cheeks:

- Put the dried herbs in a muslin sachet and place it in a large pot, together with 750 ml red wine, carrots, yellow onions, celery and garlic. Bring the mixture to a boil with the lid off, then cool to room temperature.

- Place the beef cheeks in a large resealable plastic bag, add the red wine marinade (with all e herbs + vegetables!) and leave in the chiller for up to 24 hrs.

To cook the cheeks:

- Remove e cheeks and set aside.

- Strain e marinade into a bowl and leave aside. Reserve the herb sachet and vegetables.

- Season the cheeks with salt and pepper, then flour it lightly, dusting off excess.

- Heat a heavy skillet, add canola oil and evenly brown the cheeks on all side on medium heat.

- Pour away excess beef fat rendered in the pan and use the pan to saute the vegetables.

- Placed the sauteed veg, beef cheeks and herb sachet in a casserole dish and add the red wine sauce, and the remaining red wine. Bring to a simmer and skim off surface scum.

- Transfer to a pre-heated oven at 140 deg C and braise for between 3.5 and 4 hrs. The red wine should just cover the top of the cheeks.

- After 3.5 to 4 hrs, remove the beef cheeks and set aside. Strain the sauce into a small saucepan and skim off the layer of oil. Discard the veg and herb sachet.

- Reduce the sauce over low heat until thickens. Season with salt and pepper.

- While waiting for the sauce to reduce, slice the beef cheeks into about 2 cm thick, then sear in a hot pan with butter. By now, the cheeks will be fork tender, so flip it just once when searing.

- To serve, drizzle sauce over the beef cheeks.

Ta-dah! Yummy Braised beef cheeks!

I followed the recipe word for word, until the part of reducing the sauce. My guests were hungry and so, I used Worcestershire steak sauce instead of waiting for the red wine sauce to reduce. The effect was still rather pleasant since the cheeks were already bursting with flavor.

Hopefully you'll enjoy the cheeks as much as I did!