Twentylettersintotal wrote:
> I made my first attempt at cooking cheek meat for the first time and it was
> a success. I couldn't find much in the way of recipes, so I braised it with
> just a few basic ingredients (garlic, onion, laurel, and ancho chile, a
> bottle of beer and a half a lemon squeezed over towards the end of cooking),
> cooked it low and slow after an initial browning, and tried to resist the
> smell before dinner. The results were eaten with corn tortillas with a
> selection of onions, radishes, cabbage, quesa fresca, and various additions
> of heat (salsas, Jalepenos, and finely diced poblanos).
>
> My impressions:
>
> The raw form is a deep red and smells like organ meat. If you held a
> defatted piece in your hands you might have trouble identify what this is
> exactly.
>
> Cheek meat really cooks down. A lot.
>
> The remaining meat, once separated from the fat, is incredibly tender and
> absolutely delicious.
>
> It does taste like oxtail, but at less than half the cost. I love oxtail but
> hasta la vista, baby.
>
> The fat and broth left over at the end were also incredibly delicious so I
> saved them to add flavor in the next batch of stock I make. I normally
> discard this stuff but not this time.
>
> I originally told my wife and kids that we were having cabeza. Since they
> speak a fair bit of Spanish they got the wrong impression. At first my kids
> thought I was going to serve them brains, and said they weren't going to eat
> it. My wife thought it was leavings from the whole cow's head, meaning
> brains, tongue, and pituitaries. When I told them it was just cheek meat,
> they thought it was pretty funny because it sounded like they were getting
> butt meat. There must be a more accurate Mexican term.
>
> I would probably be content eating this the same way again, but the cook in
> me is curious if it can be used successfully in another form. My first guess
> is that it would really add to a soup that was weak on flavor or chopped
> into a version of Mexican dirty rice. If anyone has tried something else I'd
> be happy to hear from you.
>
>
Luckily, here in Austin, there's barbacoa everywhere. Nearly all the
Tex-Mex places serve it(sometimes just on the weekends, along w/
menudo),but there's a lot of little trailers/taco trucks that have them,
and some of those are the best!