Slowly Braised Beef Cheeks
Beef Cheeks are a big seller at Millin’s Free Range Butcher, so when we discovered this delicious Slowly Braised Beef Cheek recipe from Movida Cookbook we thought it was just too good not to share! This beef cheek recipe makes a lovely slow-cooked dark beef cheek braise.
Cooking Time: | Serves: 6
Ingredients:
- 1.5 kg Beef Cheeks
- 125 ml (½ cup) olive oil
- 3 carrots, roughly chopped
- 1 garlic bulb, halved
- 1 brown onion, sliced
- 500 ml (2 cups) Pedro Ximenez sherry
- 500 ml (2 cups) red wine
- 3 bay leaves
- 3 tablespoons thyme leaves
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 head of cauliflower, broken into florets
- 185 ml (¾ cup) cream
- 40g butter
Method:
Trim the beef cheeks to neaten them up and remove any sinew and silver skin. Season well. Pre heat oven to 150º.- Heat half the olive oil in a large heavy-based, oven proof casserole dish over high heat. Brown the beef cheeks for 2 minutes on each side, or until golden, then remove from the pan.
Add the remaining olive oil, then add the carrot, garlic and onion and sauté over high heat for 12-15 minutes, or until well browned. Stir in the sherry, wine, bay leaves, thyme, sea salt and 500 ml (17 fl oz/2 cups) water. - Add the beef cheeks back into the dish, cover and cook in the oven for 4-6 hours, or until the cheeks are beginning to fall apart.
- Meanwhile, put the cauliflower, cream and butter in a saucepan, season to taste with salt, then cover and cook over low heat for 35 minutes, or until very tender. Place the cauliflower mixture in a blender and process until smooth. Keep the puree warm.
- The sauce from the beef cheeks should by now be reduced and glaze-like. If it needs further reducing, remove the cheeks from the pan, cover with foil to keep them warm and simmer the sauce over high heat until nicely reduced. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve and return to the pan; gently reheat the cheeks in the sauce if necessary.
- Serve the cheeks and their sauce on warm plates with the cauliflower puree
on the side.
This recipe and photo is from the Movida Cookbook MoVida Rustica.
Can this be cooked in a slow cooker
Hi Jim, Absolutely! Just follow the recipe, however put everything in the slow cooker instead of in the pot in the oven. You’ll still need to brown them first on the stove and also will need to transfer the juice to a pot to reduce for the final sauce. Good luck and enjoy!
How many ppl does this feed pls?
This recipe should feed 6 people comfortably – it’s perfect for a dinner party!
Hello when you say garlic bulb halved – is this skin off and halved width ways ?
Hi Dee, did anyone ever respond to you? Halve the garlic across the cloves (so each clove is effectively cut in half exposing its flesh. Leave the outer papery skin on to keep the bulb roughly intact. Cheers, Daneille
What a combination of beef cheeks. I also made another beef cheeck with movida.
Hi there. I want to make this ahead of time. Does it reheat well?
Regards
Victoria
I have made this with great success a couple of times. The garlic is not crucial; I put in two mashed cloves last time. Still great.
Get a good Tempranillo with a bit if weight ready. A Rioja Crianza, if you want to be ‘authentic.’ 😉
Hi There,
Can you tell me what type of red wine works best in this recipe? Shiraz, cab sav? Many thanks!
Hi there in your ingredients you say 500ml Pedro, 500ml red wine but in your method you say add Pedro and 500ml water with no mention of wine?? Which is it? Thanks
Good question I M looking at both these recipes also
Typo sorry! Please add Pedro & Wine!
Typo sorry! Please add Pedro & Wine!
I found a recipe (chef’s pencil?) that purported to use only PX in the ingredients list but mentioned wine in the method. Didn’t mention water – I thought that was odd.
I had 750g beef cheeks and halved everything in the Millins recipe. So, yh – you need 500ml PX, 500ml red wine (go for something Tempranillo) and 500ml water for the original recipe with 1.5kg beef. I had 750g so just halved everything. I ended up with far, far too much thin sauce. I didn’t want to risk ‘breaking’ the flavour by boiling to reduce so I portioned the meat and veg out to freeze (I live alone) and put the casserole back in the oven at 180c with the lid off to gently thicken. Worked, after a few hours. Worked amazingly well.
500mL Pedro and 500mL Wine is our recommendation!