BEEF CHEEKS

Beef, Veal or Ox-cheeks are quite popular in Germany since a few years. It started in the Top-restaurants and now it is a favourite dish of the german food-bloggers. Not such easy to find cheeks, but the perfect meat for braising 3-4h. Real comfort food!

Note: it is very helpful to remove the fat from the cheeks. I was too lazy to do it, a mistake.

What a coincidence, also the LATimes showed this week-end a nice video about braising cheeks:

Ingredients
1kg beef cheeks
roast vegetables (carrot, leek, celery)
bouquet garni (parsley, thyme, bay leaves)
2-3 shallots
4-5 carrots
1tbsp tomato purée
500ml red wine
500ml beef broth/stock
dash red wine vinegar/aceto balsamico

optional: 2tsp Molé spice/1-2 small pieces of Valrhona chocolate/cream sherry


Preparation
http://www.berlinkitchen.com/berlinkitchen/Slideshow_Beef_Cheeks.html

Add me to the beef cheek love. Sometimes it needs a little bit of trimming prior to cooking, but it is damn delectable.

A few years ago I went on a kind of campaign to find beef cheeks – but failed. One butcher said that he couldn’t order one or two beef cheeks, or a dozen. I think he had to order a 50 pound box, and said if I would buy that he’d order it. I don’t have that big a freezer… If people in the NYC area know where to buy them, please post about it. I am sure there must be several butchers in Manhattan that sell beef cheeks, certainly restaurants have to be able to buy them.

Ottomanelli and Sons on Bleecker.
I inquired about it just yesterday when I bought some steaks and they said just call a day in advance and they will have beef cheeks ready for you. I was planning on getting some for next weekend and will probably rely on this posted recipe.

What is the weight of a beef cheek, roughly?

Curious

Around 400-500g in Berlin. I had a big one with 600g.

P.S. I strongly recommend to experiment with a light touch of chocolate flavors which gives this dish the certain extra kick and brings it to a new level.