Pork cheeks in red wine are one of our favorite offal dishesbecause they allow us to enjoy a simple and easy stew in a short time and at a fairly reasonable price, which is not bad with these times.
However, beyond the fact that we can sometimes skate with the meat point and it stays a little harder than necessary, there are also other small mistakes that can spoil a stew that is as successful as it is traditional.
Though cheek pieces have been in style for a few years —and they were not really part of our grandmothers’ kitchen—, the truth is that there is no house or restaurant where they are not cooked. For this reason, today we pay attention to a tip from twelve Michelin stars Martín Berasategui to embroider pork cheeks.
In any case, the advice given by the Basque chef is can be extrapolated to any other type of cheek piecewhether they are Iberian pork, veal or cow cheeks, because the mystery of what he revealed in the program Robin Foodissued on EITB, along with George’s David It has more to do with the sofrito.
Apart from making the typical pork cheeks, stewed with red wine and meat broth, Berasategui also attaches great importance to the stir-fry, which in this case is made with a very fine carrot, shallot and leek mirepoix.
However, this is not the most important part of the recipe that the chef from Donosti proposes, who also insists on seal very well and perfectly caramelize the cheeks in the casserole where we are going to cook them.
This logical procedure is aimed at do not let the meat juices escape and, above all, to later take advantage of that part that ‘grabs’ at the bottom of the casserole to give the dish more flavor, but always preventing it from burning.
In fact, the great advice of Martín Berasategui is neither in the cheeks nor in using a good meat broth —which is taken for granted—, but in having be very careful when making the saucewhere he recommends “not coloring the vegetables”.
To do this, Berasategui first marks the cheeks well, reserves them and then adds them to the casserole. the vegetables well chopped but without letting them take coloronly allowing them to sweat, because if they start to take on color and caramelize they also give off bitter and burnt flavors, something that the Basque chef shies away from.
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For this reason, Martín Berasategui’s trick of the day is that the stir-fry is not taken from us, as in the case of the cheeks, which will then be ready after a couple of hours of cooking over a gentle heat and which, to give your sauce even more thickness and shine, bet on adding a little cold butter.
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