All right. Almost anybody can make a meal if they start with great ingredients and just don't fuck those up. Example is your prime beef at the fancy schmancy steak house. --Which AP sure adores. Take an excellent product don't overcook it, and it's awesome. Pretty fucking simple and the results are consistent. So in this installment AP will take two complete humble main ingredients and turn those into something. I'm using beef cheeks and cornmeal to make . . . .well, beef cheeks and cornmeal mush. it's much better than it sounds and it's a show stopper.
Beef cheeks aren't a common food ingredient and not typically found. I stumbled upon some at the mexican market yesterday. Unlike sweetbreads, beef cheeks are what they sound like they are. They are the cheeks of the cow. And they are difficult to work with. To use an analogy, they are to cows, like the wings and feet are to the chicken. These are a fucking delicacy that typically just get thrown out. Like chicken wings were in the 1970s and 1980s.
These are still relatively cheap. But then chicken wings were once free.
Start by getting out a heavy duty dutch oven and sautee a mire-poix (2 part onion, 1 part celery, 1 part carrot). Don't worry too much about the size of the dice or chop or if there are leaves on the celery.
Just sweat the mire-poix for about 5 minutes over medium high heat. Then remove them.
Clean the beef cheeks of any excess fat, remove any excess silver skin as if you were prepping flank steak, london broil or brisket. These really didn't require much work. Don't get too carried away trying to make it perfect. Just remove giant piece of the silver skin. Dredge in a little flour. Shake off excess and brown over medium high heat for about a minute per side. Work in batches if necessary.
Add the veggies back into the pot.
Add: some garlic, bay leaves, thyme, tomatoes. Pour about a cup of wine into the pot to as the braising liquid. This happens to be a pretty damn good Russian River Valley Pinot Noir that my bud Adam Lee makes.
Cover. Put into the oven at 225F for 6 hours. Don't fuck with it until the then. Remove from oven and sit aside. A soon as as you set it aside. Time to make the polenta.
Saute some onion and garlic in a separate small pot.
Add some milk and bring to slight simmer for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, chop up some cheese that melts well. I happened to have swiss so that got used.
Add two or three drops of hot sauce to the milk.
Strain the milk and discard the onion and garlic. Get used to the idea of straining in this one.
Return the milk to the pan and bring the heat up to medium/high. Slowly, very slowly, a little bit at a time, whisk in the cornmeal. Let it come to a small boil while adding the cornmeal. But as soon as it does, drop the heat down to medium. It will rapidly thicken and don't run the risk of scorching it. I had this Texas course stuff. Probably not the idea stuff to use, but in a pinch it's what was on hand.
Whisking
When it thickens, stir constantly with a wooden spoon and add the cheese a few cubes at a time. Let those melt before adding more. Season with salt and pepper. Sit aside.
Meanwhile, using tongs, remove the beef checks from the dutch oven knocking off all of the carrot, onion, bay leaves, etc. Also, save the tomatoes. I put it onto a warm cast iron pan and stashed it into a 200 degree oven to keep warm.
Strain the braising liquid of all the chuncks.
Add tomatoes to the strained liquid and blend in a processor, blender, or in this case --an immersion stick blender.
Then boil the liquid with tomatoes over high heat until it reduces by about half. It concentrates the flavor in a big way. See the foam that comes to the surface around the edges. Skim that shit off with a spoon.
Meanwhile, shred the beef cheeks with a couple of forks. It should be fall apart tender and really just come to threads very easy.
On a warm platter. Pour the Polenta into the center. I'm going rustic, family style. But you could put the polenta into a custard cup, brown some bread crumbs on top, etc. I'm not doing that.
Spread the shredded beef around the polenta. Or don't.
Pour the gravy over the top with a little fresh Italian parsley. Or you could pour the gravy/sauce on the plate and place the beef on top of it and sprinkle garnish in a decorative manner. I guess I'm saying you could go fancy on the presentation if you want.
The beef cheeks have a very intense beef flavor. The braising melts the tough stuff and makes it have that lip smacking gelatinous goodness. The beef cheeks also have a good deal of fat smattered throughout. Probably the closest cut to beef cheeks would be beef ribs. But the beefy flavor of the cheeks is easily a notch above the ribs. Just the same, cheeks aren't easy to find in the states. I hardly ever see them in the store. These are usually served up in upscale fancy-assed restaurants and given some sort of Italian/Spanish/French name with an high mark up. However, in Italy, France, or Spain, it's not uncommon to find beef cheeks (or veal cheeks) on a bistro menu. The first time I ever had these was in Rome, served over polenta, but with a lighter beef broth jus.