Christmas beef or pork cheeks in red wine sauce: Recipe and side dishes

CHRISTMAS PORK OR BEEF CHEEKS IN RED WINE SAUCE

I am bringing you a delicious wine-related recipe to enjoy this Christmas: pork or beef cheeks in red wine sauce.

- Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 2 beef or pork cheeks, as you prefer.
• 200 g of onion
• 2 carrots
• 2 garlic cloves
• 200 ml of red wine 
• 100 ml of Amontillado Sherry
• 500 ml water
• 100 ml olive oil
• A bay leaf
• Salt
• Pepper

Before moving on to describe the process, let us first take a look at the wines we can use. Red wine is the perfect ingredient for making a dark coloured gravy or sauce, but we should not use just any old wine. In the same way as we consider the quality of all the ingredients we use, we should also make sure that the wine we add to our cooking recipes will not confer unwanted flavours.

Full-bodied red wines with tannin are perfect, such as the wines made in Alicante using Monastrell grapes, or those from Ribera del Duero or Toro using Tempranillo grapes, or Valencian wines with Bobal grapes, which will all confer intensity and complexity to our stew.

This recipe also includes 100 ml of Amontillado Sherry, which is characterised by its hints of wood, nuts such as hazelnuts, cocoa and spices, which all add to the flavour of the recipe.

Preparation:

• Clean the pork/beef cheeks by removing the skin from them. Season with salt and pepper and then brown on a high heat to seal them. Set them to one side.
• Chop the onion, carrot and garlic and sauté in olive oil until it is lightly browned.
• Add the meat and the red wine and reduce before adding the sherry and then bring to the boil again.
• Add the bay leaf and cover with water. When it starts to boil, turn the heat down to low and simmer for around 50 minutes. To check if the meat is cooked, stick a skewer or toothpick in. If it is soft, remove it from the sauce.
• We now blend the sauce and reduce it to taste.
• To finish off our recipe, we can boil some potatoes or vegetables as we prefer, and then sauté them with the pork/beef cheeks in the reduced sauce.

The only thing remaining to do is choose the wine to serve with the dish!

The same wine we used for cooking will guarantee a perfect pairing of flavours.

If you would like a slightly different experience, try serving some of Amontillado sherry that you used for cooking. They are strong, complex wines, featuring an array of spicy and nutty nuances that will enhance all the flavours of the dish.