Ox cheeks in port wine

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 1,300 g ox cheeks, neatly trimmed
• 1 bottle of red wine, good, important for the quality of the sauce
• 500 ml port wine, vintage
• 300 g root vegetables, cleaned (celeriac, leek, carrots)
• 1 m.-sized onion(s)
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 ½ liters of veal stock
• 2 cl cognac
• 5 cl balsamic vinegar, aged
• olive oil
• Sea salt
• Pepper, from the mill

Instructions

Working time approx. 40 minutes; Total time approx. 40 minutes

takes time, simmers for 4 hours, great for guests, very easy to prepare

Season the trimmed cheeks on all sides with pepper and salt and tie them together again with kitchen string to form cheeks. Preheat oven to 120°C. Check temperature! Cut the vegetables into small cubes and finely chop the onion. In a sufficiently large casserole dish or roasting pan, sear the cheeks on all sides in olive oil over high heat until they brown. Roast 1 tablespoon of tomato paste. Add the root vegetables and let them brown. Add one-third each of the port wine and red wine and let it reduce. Repeat this process two more times. Pour in the veal stock so that the cheeks are almost covered and place the pan on the floor of the oven. Braise at 120°C for approx. 3.5 hours. Turn the cheeks in the cooking juices every now and then. When the cheeks are so tender you could eat them with a spoon, remove them, wrap them in aluminum foil and let them rest in the oven. Strain the meat juices through a sieve into a saucepan and reduce by a third (let it reduce). In a small saucepan, fry 1 tablespoon of tomato paste, deglaze with the cognac, reduce the liquid and then add the balsamic vinegar. Let it reduce briefly to form a syrupy sauce. Add this to the reduced sauce from the cheeks and stir through. Remove the kitchen string from the cheeks and return them to the sauce. If very large, you may want to cut them in half. The sauce has an incredibly creamy consistency and a wonderfully intense flavor. The meat is probably unbeatable in terms of tenderness. Ox cheeks are not that easy to come by, so the best place to buy them is from a butcher who still slaughters his own meat and by advance order. We like to serve them with potato gratin and carrots, but tagliatelle also goes well, or turnip puree with Brussels sprouts.