8-Hour Wagyu Beef Cheeks
My BFF, Shaun @ Orca indirectly threw down a foodie gauntlet by announcing on his WhatsApp group that he had Wagyu Beef Cheeks in stock. Holy shit. Challenge accepted buddy. Like skirt steak, cheeks are not a usual ‘cut’ you’d be buying or seeing on too many menus. So any time he throws in a googly like this, I am all over it, especially when it mentioned the Wagyu word too. These bad boys arrived and were super-marbled monster cheeks, must have been a huge bloody cow. I trimmed off the ‘silver-skin’ and that was that they were ready for their 8-hour bath in yumminess.
These are both #BillWallaceFriendly & #KnibbsyKiddleWagyuFriendly as all were from the fridge at the time of cooking… OK, the beef cheeks arrived a day or so before, but still, they were in the fridge… These are going to be amazing. Let’s get to them…
8-Hour Wagyu Beef Cheeks
Let’s go, let’s go;
- In a smoking hot pan add a little fat or butter and sear off those beef cheeks on all sides – until you get a nice brown char on them all over;
- Set those aside – you are basically adding flavour and keeping the juices within the meat;
- I used my French cast-iron pot for this as it is going low and slow – into that add;
- 1 Tbsp finely chopped garlic
- 1/2 bottle red wine
- 1 Ltr beef stock
- 2 tin of peeled plum tomatoes – juice and all
- 1/2 bar of 90% cocoa chocolate (yes you read correctly)
- 2 red onions – peel and cut to quarters
- A seriously good pinch of sea salt & cracked black pepper
- And immerse those beautifully charred beef cheeks of course
- Throw the pot in a pre-heated oven at 150 degrees for 8 hours – yes EIGHT HOURS, just leave the bloody thing alone;
- This is low and slow baby – when you take this out those beef cheeks will be like beefy butter, super-soft, ever so tender, moist and double-delicious;
- I served this up in a platter as you can see – I had to be very careful with the beef cheeks as they were literally falling apart;
- Served with white rice.
