A KENTISH CHRISTMAS FEAST CONT .
Slow Braised Beef Cheek
Recipe by Ray Clear , Head Chef , The Butchers Block , Burham thebutchersblockpub . co . uk
There is a very taboo culture around beef cheek and not a lot of people have eaten it . For me it ’ s one of the best parts when done properly . A labour of love but well worth it to create a dish that will wow your guests and make you look like a superstar this Christmas !
Makes : 2 portions Ingredients :
• 1 beef cheek
• 2 white onions
• 1 / 2 bottle red wine
• 3 sticks of celery
• 3 bulbs garlic
• 1 large carrot
• Water
• Seasoning
• Thyme
• Rosemary
• Red skin Rooster potatoes
• Unsalted butter
• Fresh chives
• Heritage carrots
• Kale
Equipment :
• Deep roasting tray
• Sharp knife
• Potato ricer ( or very good mashing skills !)
• Grill
• Piping bag
Method : 1 . Preheat your oven to 110 ° C
2 . Take your beef cheek and keep the fat on , place into a hot baking tray fat side down and season , seal off all sides and add all your veg and herbs and brown off this should take 5-10 minutes , deglaze the tray with the red wine and cover with water . Cover with two layers of tin foil and place into oven .
3 . This is where patience comes into play because now this is going to take a long time to cook , at the restaurant we cook them for 13-14 hours until they are nearly impossible to pick up . When they get to this stage , put them into a resting tray , leave to cool and then put in the fridge to form up ( keep the cooking liquid , we are going to use this later ...).
4 . While they are cooling down strain your cooking liquid into a pan and put onto the heat to reduce . You can add a knorr stock pot cube if you wish ( we don ’ t but could be a nice touch of flavour ).
5 . To make your mash , take your good quality red skin , low starch potatoes and cook in salted water from cold . Once cooked , we put our potatoes through a ricer but if you have muscles like Arnold , then it should be easy enough to make smooth creamy mash . Only season with salt , add chopped chives – this is the pepper flavour .
6 . Wash , cut and blanch the veg .
7 . At this point your jus should be thickened and ready to use . Place the beef cheek into the jus to heat up slowly .
To serve : 8 . Pipe mash into a clean beef bone ( or oven-proof dish !) and grill for colour and flavour , add some rock salt and put onto a plate .
9 . Cut the beef cheek in half removing all excess fat that you don ’ t want and put on a plate .
10 . Place your veg in a neat pile – you could sit your beef cheek on the veg if you ' re interested in presentation for Christmas .
11 . Cover with lashings of jus and that ’ s it , as easy as that !
Top Tip : Add some bone marrow to your mash to make it really rich !
Corkk ’ s choice : A dish of this richness and beefiness will need a red fruit wine to deliver that warming ripe punch and the Biddenden Dornfelder 2019 has plenty of brambly fruit to do just that . This slow cooked dish has melt in the mouth meat , so a softer , rounder wine will be perfect and the gentle tannins of the Dornfelder will be perfect .
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