Beef Cheeks in red wine sauce over a home made Polenta.. YUMMY!!

I was irritated by meat prices and the revulsion my fellow Americans have with "Offal" meats.. hehe.. so I bought some beef cheeks super cheap at an international market in St Louis and tried a recipe I tweaked a little. OMG... this meat is tender, wonderful, tasty. Im going to try more things people dont want to eat. LOL! Seriously though, Ive traveled extensively and lived for periods of times in other countries. There are more parts to the cow than our local butcher and grocery seems to realize that are wonderful. Id been back home and thought Id try the "nose to tail" eating... IE waste nothing. Im telling you.. this is WONDERFUL and I cant believe that this isnt offered in restaurants or more folks dont know to eat this part.

about 3 or 4 lbs of Beef cheeks, trim the fat off for the most part.
Set the cheeks in a container and season with just sea salt and fresh pepper.
Chop up celery, carrots, whole onion, and garlic.
Fry some bacon or hog jowel and when there is enough grease, add the cheeks to brown them.
remove the cheeks and bacon
Add the cut veg to the grease and cook until a little browned
while your pan is hot, add in the cheeks and cover it all with beef broth and about 2 cups of red wine ( I used a local wine.. St James in Mo)
bring to boil and turn to simmer.. cook them until they and the veg are tender.

While youre cooking the above, boil 6 cups o f water with sea salt ( I used about 3 teaspoons) when boiling, slowly whisk in 1 3/4 cups of corm meal and turn to simmer. Add in about 4 TSP of unsalted butter and some garlic powder and pepper if you like. I do. Stir occassionally until the polenta is firm and remove from heat.

When the cheeks are tender.. several hrs.. serve it hot over the polenta. You can fry the polenta if you like, but I just keep it a mush. I served skinned and long sliced fried yellow squash in panko breading as a side

Truly, this was so good and the family loved it so much Im going back into the city tomorrow and buying a bunch of cheapo cheeks and freezing them. What a treat this was!!

Okay...I had to look it up...

Funnily enough, the name 'beef cheek' refers to the facial cheek muscle of a cow. It's a very tough and lean cut of meat and is most often used for braising or slow cooking to produce a tender result. You may need to order them ahead from your butcher. If beef cheeks aren't available, beef brisket cut into pieces of the same weight make a good substitute.

gourmettraveller.com.au...

I doubt there's any butcher around that would ahve that cut...any other unusual/cheap cuts you can suggest??????

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
Okay...I had to look it up...

Funnily enough, the name 'beef cheek' refers to the facial cheek muscle of a cow. It's a very tough and lean cut of meat and is most often used for braising or slow cooking to produce a tender result. You may need to order them ahead from your butcher. If beef cheeks aren't available, beef brisket cut into pieces of the same weight make a good substitute.

gourmettraveller.com.au...

I doubt there's any butcher around that would ahve that cut...any other unusual/cheap cuts you can suggest??????

Yeah, the local butcher actually told me it was "dog food".. idiot. Id ask around where you are of course.

I have had great success with beef tongue.. and fooled my kids into eating it cause it didnt have a weird texture when I was done with it.. its cheap and actually very good. I LOVE oxtail or beef neck soup and thats cheap. Asada meat is usually cheap.. thats the outer or inner skirt but usually the trimmings of even that when shredded at a market. The outer is more tender, but you actually can make ANY meat tender if you want to. I have recipes for heart and sweetbreads that actually taste better than any old ground beef or common crap cut.. and cheaper.. plus more nutritious. If you were close to me, Id make you a deer leg. I have a whole deer leg from the shoulder down I bbq. I know you can buy shin bones and etc for soup base.. you get the nutrition of the marrow.. and add a bunch of veg. LOTS of different red meats.. and they are most times cheap as heck at an international/asian/other grocer. I dont especially like maws.. balls. I just cant get past them being balls I guess! LOL!
Oh and bacon prohibitively priced? Get bacon tips and trimmings. You can get them sometimes from the butcher. They arent nice and uniformly cut so folks dont want them. They taste the same.

If you like, I can give you cheap and good recipes for most anything like this and let you know if Ive actually tried the recipe.. and if its good. A lot of recipes are just plain terrible.. so I ad lib them. Just let me know.. I LOVE sharing this stuff. Famine foods will be a necessity very soon Im afraid and I have a literal volume of family and others Ive found in books or online depression time recipes and substitutes.

reply to post by Advantage


I've done beef heart...but many years ago...I think I did it in a pressure cooker.....before I had a slow cooker
What I remember is having to peel the damn thing.
I do know a butcher that can get me that.
I'll have to ask about the neck bones...

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
reply to post by Advantage

 

I've done beef heart...but many years ago...I think I did it in a pressure cooker.....before I had a slow cooker

What I remember is having to peel the damn thing.
I do know a butcher that can get me that.
I'll have to ask about the neck bones...

Ever made brain sandwiches or brains and eggs?? peeling calf brains will make you swear off of eating anything that isnt in a package. LOL! My grandfather loved brain sandwiches and I thought Id make him happy by making him some when I was an older teen. He had NO idea how hard that was to make and if karma is real.. I surely peeled my way into heaven with that one.
I dont even know if you can get calf brains anymore.. that was pre mad cow. When all of that came about you couldnt buy them for a long time.
You do one recipe for tongue in a slow cooker.. if you want the recipe. If you can get past the handling of the huge tongue.... youll enjoy the meal. I was looking this morning and I have 2 recipes for the beef cheeks for slow cooker if youd like them.
This weekend my father in law comes over .. at the local hosp here in St Louis for Chemo and he is from Nebraska. Old German farmer type. Now HE will know some nasty parts of the animal to eat. He is the only one who will sit down and eat souse.. I think it is also called head cheese... sandwiches with me! Thats some nasty stuff as far as whats in it.. but boy is it good. I have about a million goat recipes but the meat is hard to find here and I heard no more about horse meat being okayed by the powers that be for our consumption. I have no idea how to cook horse and my mother almost passed out when I eagerly told her about the horse meat thing... probably some sort of mortal sin in my culture I dont know about.


Im not dead broke and eyeballing my dog yet.. I just seriously resent this meat price manipulation. Beef should be dirt cheap at giveaway prices right now with the drought slaughters.. but nope. We could feed SO MANY hungry with whats flooded the market at the moment if we werent manipulating it and shipping it overseas.I went to the store just yesterday... still jacked up for NO reason. Chicken??When I have to buy a scrawny fryer here in this part of the country for over 5 bucks a chicken.. that annoys me to no end. We wont even get into the seafood. Id probably get banned...

reply to post by Advantage


Um...no brain recipes, please.....but maybe the tongue recipe would be nice, please...and I'll hold off on asking for checks recipes until I find out if I can get them from the butcher.....

I've had souse....we had a German butcher shop in the area...but not something I would bother to prepare....as a little bit of it satisfies.