Chef Thomas
Beef and Ale Stew
Braising steak surrendered to dark ale and slow time, with onions and mushrooms, until the gravy turns thick and malty and the kitchen smells like the kind of evening you want to stay in for.
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Braised Ox Cheeks
Created by Chef Thomas
Ox cheeks braised long and slow in a bottle of red wine until the meat yields to a spoon and the collagen turns the sauce to silk, the kind of dish that fills the house with a smell that says stay.
Soups & Stews
British
Dinner Party
Make Ahead
30 min
Active Time
4 hr cook•4 hr 30 min total
Yield4 servings
The smell hits you before you remember what's in the oven. It starts around the two-hour mark, a low, savoury warmth that seeps out from the kitchen and settles into the hallway, the sitting room, the coats by the door. Wine and beef and thyme and something deeper, the particular sweetness of collagen beginning to give. By hour three, the whole house smells like a place you'd want to come home to.
Ox cheeks were cheap once. Butchers practically gave them away, the oddest of the odd cuts, nobody quite sure what to do with them. Now they've been discovered, which is a mixed blessing, but they're still worth every penny because no other cut does what this one does. The connective tissue that makes them tough when raw becomes, over four hours of patient heat, the most extraordinary natural sauce: glossy, rich, sticky, coating everything it touches. You don't make this sauce. The meat makes it for you. All you do is provide the wine and the time.
This is a January dish, or a February one. It needs the dark outside the window, the cold that makes you pull your sleeves down over your hands. It needs an afternoon where you have nowhere to be, where the oven ticks quietly and the wine reduces and the kitchen becomes the warmest room in the house. I wrote it down in the notebook years ago: ox cheeks, red wine, slow oven, Sunday. I've cooked it dozens of times since and changed almost nothing. A recipe is a conversation, not a contract, but some conversations don't need revising.
Serve it in warm bowls with something plain underneath to catch the sauce. Mashed potato is traditional and right. A few people at the table, a bottle of the same wine you cooked with, the kind of evening that doesn't need to be anything other than what it is. We're only making dinner.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
ox cheeks
Quantity
4 (roughly 250g each after trimming)
trimmed of sinew
plain flour
Quantity
2 tablespoons
seasoned with salt and pepper
beef dripping or olive oil
Quantity
2 tablespoons
unsalted butter
Quantity
30g
onions
Quantity
2
halved and thickly sliced
carrots
Quantity
2
peeled and cut into rough chunks
celery
Quantity
2 sticks
sliced
garlic
Quantity
4 cloves
crushed but left whole
tomato purée
Quantity
1 tablespoon
red wine
Quantity
1 bottle (750ml)
beef stock
Quantity
500ml
bay leaves
Quantity
2
thyme
Quantity
a few sprigs
orange peel
Quantity
1 strip
pared with a vegetable peeler, no pith
fine sea salt
Quantity
to taste
black pepper
Quantity
to taste
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| ox cheekstrimmed of sinew | 4 (roughly 250g each after trimming) |
| plain flourseasoned with salt and pepper | 2 tablespoons |
| beef dripping or olive oil | 2 tablespoons |
| unsalted butter | 30g |
| onionshalved and thickly sliced | 2 |
| carrotspeeled and cut into rough chunks | 2 |
| celerysliced | 2 sticks |
| garliccrushed but left whole | 4 cloves |
| tomato purée | 1 tablespoon |
| red wine | 1 bottle (750ml) |
| beef stock | 500ml |
| bay leaves | 2 |
| thyme | a few sprigs |
| orange peelpared with a vegetable peeler, no pith | 1 strip |
| fine sea salt | to taste |
| black pepper | to taste |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy lidded casserole or Dutch oven, big enough for four cheeks
- •Kitchen paper
- •Wooden spoon
- •Vegetable peeler
Instructions
- 1
Brown the ox cheeks
Pat the ox cheeks dry with kitchen paper. This matters. Wet meat steams instead of browning, and browning is where the flavour starts. Dust them lightly in the seasoned flour, shaking off any excess. Heat the dripping or oil in a heavy casserole over a high heat until it shimmers and just begins to smoke. Brown the cheeks in batches, two at a time, giving each side a good three or four minutes until they've developed a deep, mahogany crust. Don't crowd the pan. Don't move them too soon. When the meat releases itself from the bottom without tearing, it's ready to turn. Set them aside on a plate.
Ask your butcher to trim the cheeks for you. There's a seam of sinew running through the middle that needs to come out, and a butcher will do it in seconds. If you're doing it yourself, a sharp knife and a bit of patience will get you there. - 2
Soften the vegetables
Turn the heat down to medium. Add the butter to the same pan and let it melt into the dark, sticky residue left by the meat. That residue is pure flavour. Add the onions, carrots, and celery with a generous pinch of salt. Stir them through the butter and cook for eight to ten minutes, until the onions have softened and turned translucent, and the kitchen smells sweet and savoury at once. Add the garlic and tomato purée, stir for another minute until the purée darkens slightly and loses its raw, tinny edge.
- 3
Deglaze with wine
Pour in the whole bottle of wine. Don't be shy about it. Let it come to a proper boil, scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to lift every scrap of caramelised goodness stuck there. Let the wine bubble away for five or six minutes until it has reduced by roughly a third and the raw alcohol smell has gone, replaced by something deeper, fruitier, more like a promise. The sauce should already be starting to smell like the kind of evening you want to have.
Use a wine you'd happily pour yourself a glass of while you cook. Nothing expensive, but nothing you wouldn't drink. A decent Côtes du Rhône or a Malbec. If the wine isn't good enough for your glass, it isn't good enough for the pot. - 4
Braise low and slow
Return the ox cheeks to the pan, nestling them down among the vegetables. Pour in the stock. The liquid should come about three-quarters of the way up the cheeks, not fully covering them. Tuck in the bay leaves, thyme sprigs, and the strip of orange peel. Bring it all to a very gentle simmer on the hob, then cover with a lid and transfer to the oven at 150C (130C fan). Leave it alone for three and a half to four hours. Check it once, halfway through, to make sure it's barely ticking over: the odd lazy bubble breaking the surface, nothing more. If it's bubbling vigorously, drop the oven by ten degrees.
The line between braising and boiling is the difference between silk and string. Low and slow. A braise that simmers too hard will tighten the meat instead of surrendering it. - 5
Check the braise
The cheeks are done when they yield completely to the pressure of a spoon. Not a knife. A spoon. You should be able to pull the meat apart without any resistance at all, and the sauce around it will have turned glossy and slightly viscous from the collagen that has melted out over those long, patient hours. This is what ox cheeks do that almost no other cut can: they turn their own connective tissue into a sauce that coats the back of a spoon like something you would spend hours making separately.
- 6
Finish the sauce
Lift the cheeks out carefully and set them aside, covered loosely. Fish out the bay leaves, thyme stalks, and orange peel. If the sauce is thin, set the casserole on the hob over a medium heat and let it reduce, uncovered, for ten to fifteen minutes until it coats the back of a spoon. Taste it. Season with salt and pepper. Taste it again. The sauce should be rich, deep, and just slightly sticky. Return the cheeks to the pan and warm them through gently. Serve in warm bowls with something to soak up the sauce: mashed potato, creamy polenta, or just good bread torn from the loaf. There are few better feelings than putting this in front of someone on a dark evening.
Chef Tips
- •Find a butcher who stocks ox cheeks and ask them to trim them properly. The trimming matters: there's a membrane and sinew running through each cheek that won't break down even after hours of braising, and it needs to come out before the meat goes in the pot. A good butcher does this without being asked.
- •Don't skip browning, and don't rush it. That mahogany crust is the foundation of the entire sauce. Dry the meat, heat the pan until it's properly fierce, and leave each piece alone until it releases. Patience here pays dividends for the next four hours.
- •This is better the next day. Make it on Saturday, let it cool, refrigerate it overnight, and reheat gently on Sunday. The flavours deepen and meld, the sauce tightens, and the fat lifts to the surface where you can skim it off. The best braises always improve with a night's rest.
- •A strip of orange peel, added to the braise, does something quietly extraordinary. It doesn't make the dish taste of orange. It lifts the wine and the beef and gives the sauce a brightness that you can't quite place but would miss if it weren't there. No pith, though. Pith makes things bitter.
Advance Preparation
- •Can be made two to three days ahead and refrigerated. It improves overnight as the flavours settle and the sauce firms. Reheat gently in a low oven, covered, for thirty minutes or until warmed through.
- •Freezes well for up to three months. Defrost overnight in the fridge and reheat in a covered casserole at 150C until bubbling gently at the edges.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 480g)
Calories
640 calories
Total Fat
37 g
Saturated Fat
17 g
Trans Fat
1 g
Unsaturated Fat
19 g
Cholesterol
210 mg
Sodium
850 mg
Total Carbohydrates
22 g
Dietary Fiber
3 g
Sugars
8 g
Protein
52 g
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