Looking for Beef Cheeks [General]

2013 Mar 12
I have been coming across beef cheeks a lot recently in some very nice restaurants like L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon in Paris, Regelade de St. Honere and Loire at Winterlicious. Most of those have been braised a la bourguignon and I really enjoyed them.

I would be interested to know if anyone have seen beef cheeks for sales in any butchers or other places in Ottawa since I would like to try and make it myself.

Thanks in advance.

2013 Mar 13
i know O'Brien's farm has them, but i'm sure any butcher could order them or already has them in stock.

2013 Mar 13
I need to get some pig belly on Thursday, I'll scout out Laverne's and let you know if they have them. I'll probably pick up a couple for myself too. Just sayin.

2013 Mar 13
Thanks for the ideas Eastcoast Chef and Stuart.

I found this recipe and it looks great.
www.epicurious.com

2013 Mar 13
That looks awesome!

I think I'm leaning towards cooking them on my charcoal BBQ the first time, I've been reading about people in Texas and Cali doing them low and slow at 225 for hours and having them come out great. Maybe a little pecan wood for the first hour or two as well.

2013 Mar 13
Stuart S: How do you cook pork belly? I cook pork belly simple Japanese style, but I would like to learn different recipe too.

FoodTravel: I was also looking for beef Cheeks! The recipe looks nice!
I will try to find more recipe!!

2013 Mar 13
I had a pretty decent pork belly at Regelade St Honere in Paris. We loved their grand marnier souffle so much that my sister bought the restaurant's recipe book and I bought the Esprit Bistrot cookbook which has 60 recipes from 5 bistros/chefs including Bruno Doucet.

Will try to post the pork belly recipe with lentilles tomorrow or over the weekend since I have to translate it from French and my french is a tad rusty.


2013 Mar 13
Skimming through it quickly, it is simmers stovetop for a long time 3.5 hrs and then finshed off in the oven.

2013 Mar 13
Aisu, the one I'm picking up this week will be made into bacon, but when I make it for eating without curing it into bacon I do the following:

Score the skin on the top in a diamond pattern, rub with 5 spice powder, crushed garlic & salt and pepper. Place on a rack in a roasting pan and add water to just below the bottom of the belly to stop the rendered fat from smoking too much. Roast at 250 for several hours and add water as required. Skin should be very well cooked and crunchy when finished. If its not crisping up cook at 400 for the last 20 minutes.

To be honest I usually do this indirect on my charcoal bbq most of the time.

I guess the 5 spice makes it Asian in nature :). I've also done it without the 5 spice powder and glazed with maple syrup for the last hour. Either way, unctuous goodness. Maybe even a bit of umami feeling when you get the crisp skin, tender flesh and delicious fat. Not something to eat too much of, but very good in moderation!

2013 Mar 13
Pretty sure Lavergne does no have them since they don't get any beef heads. Lots of pork cheeks though.

Try Mr Beef Store online. Email them and ask, then go out to Packenham to pick them up

2013 Mar 13
Stuart:making bacon!! Nice!! And the way you cook the belly sounds so good! Chacoal bbq... Glazed with maple syrup sounds so good!!
Somehow pork goes really well with something sweet.

Long time ago at the Play food and wine, I had seard pork belly with sage and cranberry compote...may be it wasn't sage...anyways, it was very tasty, I still remember how good it was.

When I cook belly, I cube them into about 1~2inch, then sear all the sides,
drain all the fat, then simmer them with ginger and green onion for 90 mins.
Drain, rinse, put them back in the pot, cook with soy sauce, sake,sugar,ginger,salt,pepper. Pork belly becomes so soft, you don't need knife. Serve with Japanese karashi hot mustard. This is called Pork Belly Kakuni, I also had it at Suisha garden Izakaya night.

Food Travel: French recipe seems very nice. Thank you!

2013 Mar 15
For beef cheeks you need to let a custom butcher know ahead or slaughter house. They need to have the head inspected at slaughter, which is normally not done, in order to sell you the cheeks. Not easy to find. I have a great recipe from the original chef @ the now defunct Moose's in SF. (if that means anything to anyone but me). I have to dig it out but will try to post it. I had amazing cheeks there, and emailed the restaurant - they responded that they'd send it to me as soon as they got someone to translate from the chef's recipe (in french). It was a nice touch, this was back in 1996, very early days for email/web for restaurants.

2013 Mar 15
I know I have to go to a custom butcher but did not realize that it might need to be special order on top of it.. But well cooked it is amazing.

2013 Mar 17
A NO from Sasslove Wellington. They have pork cheeks occassionally but do not carry beef cheeks.

2013 Mar 17
Looks like Mr Beef's website is down again - call Abed at 613 851 9178

2013 Mar 17
saw it on the tasting menu at le Cordon Bleu so also have a query out to them asking where they source that.

2013 Mar 18
Don't know if they still have them, but the Glebe Meat Market said they could get them for me...but I would have to buy a 40 pound box.

2013 Mar 18
Zym,

Called Mr Beef and they usually have it at $4.49 / lb which is a good deal I think. Bekingham is about 1 hr from me so need to schedule a trip when I have a special meal planned.

Still interested to find one closer to town that I can go to for more spur of the moment trip.

2013 Mar 18
So order $200 worth - they deliver for free with a $200 order :-)

2013 Mar 20
If anyone else is interested maybe we can set up a group order to get to the $200 minimum for free shipping? I'd be down for some beef cheeks and some other cuts...

2013 Apr 2
I am trying to get some beef cheeks late this week. One other OF is interested but if others are also we can try to coordinate.


2013 Apr 2
I would be in for a group order - but I wouldn't need many - 4 max.

2013 Apr 3
weights...

use weights - 3 or 4 of this and that won't help your local guy

2013 Apr 3
Damn that will teach me to not browse this forum for a few weeks. I drove past Mr Beef once or twice a week all winter to go to mount packenham with my son but now snowboard season is over and I'm reading about that delicious beef cheek recipe..

2013 Apr 4
"use weights - 3 or 4 of this and that won't help your local guy"

The local guy we are dealing with sells them by the cheek, not by weight.

I don't think he gets allot of demand for them from the general public and I sure as heck hope he doesn't start getting enough to warrant the price going through the roof :)

2013 Apr 4
Okay Stuart S and Tracinho,

Okay been told they have approximately 13 lbs this week reserved for us as of this afternoon. They are packed 2 per pack. Not sure the $3 per cheek was an estimate or that is how much they charge per cheek. I also ordered some flank steak.

Please contact me by email or phone sent by PM.

I think there are not much demand beef cheeks so far so they prefer up to a week's notice so they can ask for the cheeks to be kept rather than discarded.

2013 Apr 4
I think they might go into a bin for ground beef rather than be discarded - that's where I thought they went back in the old days when I went to slaughterhouses frequently to get really fresh cow parts for medical research in a lab @ u of o. I could have nightmares tonight about all those skinned skulls hanging on a cart with the eyeballs twitching every which way while waiting for a worker to remove however many eyes I needed (or brains or hearts elsewhere). Hmmm, may may to crack open a tall cold self-medicator. Not too much was wasted back then and I expect there's even less waste now.

On a side note I wonder if there are any slaughterhouse still open in Ottawa - I'm pretty sure the two I went to most frequently are gone.

2013 Apr 4
The farmer is just outside Ottawa and it sounds as if they send it out somewhere to be slaugtered. Someone said heads need to be inspected to use?

uhmm Andy.. So if we visited your lab in u of o back in those days, we would have seen eyeballs floating in liquid?

2013 Apr 4
Only at Halloween!
I would cut out the irises, suspend them in chambers, connect them to pens which scribed a line on a carbon paper covered drum as they were treated with drugs and various oxygen levels in the solution they were in that enabled the tissue to remain alive. Did similar things with coronary arteries and arteries from brains. Mostly cows. Some other animals, and people.
Then I took up dairy farming. Much more enjoyable!
As far as I know anything that is used has to be inspected - at least it used to.
The slaughterhouse I went to most often was on Lees Ave, a 5 min. drive from u of o.
Btw you may be right - the eyes as well as other body parts were transported back to the lab in a saline solution. Honestly, I don't remember if they floated - nyuk!

2013 Apr 4
Not sure if people are checking reviews. FF and I have found beef cheeks (from O'Brien's) on the menu Richard's Hintonburg Kitchen. Fusion style with Korean broth.

2013 Apr 5
I just went out to pick up the cheeks from Anderson Farms in Ashton. Really nice guy, friend of Krusty's, and he's got a really nice farm. It was a bit like a postcard, or a story from a book. A nice farmhouse, some older buildings mixed with newer ones...a dog barking and running up the drive...cows frolicking (seriously they were frollicking!) in the field next to the house...you get the idea.

We had a good chat about his animals, and his philosophy on farming on a property his family has been on since 1883. I'll definitely be back for more beef and lamb.

2013 Apr 5
Thanks for doing the pickup Stuart. Now have beef cheeks and flank steak and I am starting to shop my epicurious recipe box before progressing to cook books later.

Rob has been very good to deal with by email. He does deliver to the city (Ottawa) on Thursdays but I am not sure how it works, if there is a minimum purchase requirement and/or delivery charge.

They are sold by weight and the ones I got were about 3/4 lb (12 ozs) each.