The cheek of it

It's been a while.  No, I haven't stopped eating in my absence.  In fact I have acquired new tastes - not least for butter in drinks.  More of that another time, I think.  Back to the food.

The Ginger Pig* is a magical place.  I swung by there a while back and they had a sign - "Free Bones!" - outside.  I wandered up to the counter and asked if they had any free bones - they gave me a sackfull.  I made some beef stock - which one day will make a French onion soup.   But not today.

They also supply the best Toulouse sausages outside of Toulouse.  Toulousains may disagree, but they are not necessarily to be trusted - their city is riddled with open sewers and petty crime (see below).  Not that I can complain, their sausages are magnificent, and are best combined with Puy lentils to make that French classic, Sausage with Lentils.  You can buy it in jars from the shelves next to the Cassoulet isle in the Hypermarche.  Puy, incidentally, is an odd little stub of a place in the Massif Central, and well worth a visit. 

The Sewer of Toulouse - though they may claim it is a canal

But I digress.

While I swung by the Ginger Pig recently on my bacon rounds (did I mention they do the second best bacon in the country?) I couldn't help noticing a stack of Beef Cheeks.  I've never eaten a Beef Cheek before, let alone seen one, so I couldn't resist.  It is a cheap, rudimentary and slightly disturbing disc of meat that weighs more than it should.

The cheek is also perhaps the most used muscle on the whole of the animal.  A cow will ruminate ponderously day and night, working this part of the face into a dense, heavy, fibrous lump of muscle.  A steak it is not.  Slow cooking would be needed, I thought.  With some onions.

Lots of onions.  Reduced to a thick, sweet caramel vibe, thrown in the pot with the cheek, some of the beef stock, red wine and bay, garlic and thyme - lots of garlic.

And much as the cow will ruminate, the cheek should be left to ponder a while - three hours or more, then allowed to rest for a day or two to enrich those flavours, then another hour or more in a hot oven, lid off, with a heavy dose of salt to thicken the gravy.

Served, of course, with a scoop of dirty mash.

The meat is thick, gelatinous and flavoursome, like no other part of cow.  Well worth the time, and well worth cooking again.

(Apparently Heston has been braising Cheeks for the Little Chef.  I didn't know that, but coincidentally I read about it tonight, while tucking in).

* For those who don't know where to find the Ginger Pig, it lives almost anywhere in your dreams.  Just keep your eyes open and look for the snout.