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Slow cooked pork cheek

By July 21, 2015 , , , , , ,

Back to the realms of slow cooking this time with pork. It's not often I find pork cheeks in the butchers so when I do, I tend to buy whatever they have. Pork cheek lends itself well to long slow cooking at low temperatures as it is a tough piece of meat. The end results are fantastic with sous vide as you get a melt in your mouth tenderness. For those of you who have yet to embrace sous vide I've included a method of cooking it in the oven.




Slow cooked pork cheek

You need to start this the day before

For the marinade
2 pork cheeks
100ml red wine
3 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf
Sprig rosemary
Sprig thyme

Place all the above ingredients in a bowl and marinade overnight.

To cook the pork Sous Vide
Set the sous vide to 80 degrees celsius
To prepare the pork, coat in dripping or oil and season
Vacuum pack the pork 
Sous vide for 7 hours

To cook the pork in the oven or BBQ
Place the pork cheeks with the marinade ingredients and 100ml of chicken stock in a cast iron pan
Place in the oven for 4 hours at 130 celsius

You can now prepare the sauce

Red wine reduction
100ml red wine (you can use the wine from the marinade)
50ml stock
10g butter
1/2 teaspoon tomato purée
Half a carrot roughly sliced
Half a celery stick roughly sliced
Half an onion
1 garlic clove bruised

Fry off the veg till slightly coloured on the outside
Add the red wine to a pan and reduce by half
Add the tomato purée and stir through
Add the stock and cook through for about 15 mins
The jus should coat the back of a spoon
Strain the jus and place back into a pan
Add the butter to thicken it slightly
If the sauce is still runny you can thicken with cornflour
Season to taste

To finish the pork
Remove from the vacuum packing 
At this stage you can either sear it on a hot pan to colour the meat or char grill on a bbq ensure you dry the meat before doing so
Allow the meat to rest before serving
Serve the pork with some creamy mash and your favourite veg

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