Recipe: slow-braised beef cheeks

Each month, we’ll be a providing you a recipe from one of our cruise line partners. This month, it’s the turn of Saga with slow-braised beef cheeks with wild mushroom strudel, horseradish cream, red wine reduction and caramelised onion mashed potatoes, created exclusively by George Streeter, the line’s executive chef.

Ingredients
1kg beef cheeks – trimmed of fat
and cut into 300g pieces
100ml olive oil
200g plain flour
250g chopped celery
250g chopped carrots
250g chopped peeled onions
2 tablespoons minced garlic
3 bay leaves
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
1 bottle red wine
2l beef stock

Method
Heat the oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Season the beef cheeks with salt and pepper to taste and dredge them in flour. Fry to sear the meat and give it a nice golden brown colour. This should take two to three minutes. Set beef aside.
In the same pot, add the onions and sauté for two minutes. Add the celery and carrots and sauté for one more minute. Season, then stir in the garlic, bay leaves and thyme and cook for one more minute.

Deglaze the pot with the red wine, scraping up all the bits on the bottom. Add the stock, bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer.
Add the beef and continue to simmer for two hours, until the sauce thickens and the meat is tender.

Strain the sauce.

Wild mushroom strudel: 
75g butter
2 large shallots, finely chopped
500g wild mushrooms, chopped
2 tablespoons tarragon
3 sheets filo pastry
Salt and pepper

Method
Heat 50g of butter in a frying pan and sweat shallots. Increase the heat, add mushrooms and cook quickly. Season with salt, pepper and tarragon.
Cool in a refrigerator.
Melt the remaining butter. Take your filo pastry sheets, brush each sheet with butter and place on top of each other. Spread the mushroom mixture evenly on top leaving a 3cm space around the edges.
Roll into a sausage shape and brush over with the remaining butter.
Bake at 180C for 15 minutes until golden brown.

Caramelised onion mashed potato
400g creamy mashed potatoes
200g caramelised onions

Method
Thinly slice your onions and fry them over a medium heat in a little olive oil until golden brown. Fold the onions into the creamy mashed potato and put to one side, keep warm.

Horseradish cream
200ml double cream
50ml white wine
4 teaspoons horseradish sauce

Method
Add the horseradish to a small pan and the wine and reduce by half. Add the cream and bring to a slow simmer, and reduce until you have a smooth consistency. Check for seasoning.

Presentation
Pipe the mashed potato in the centre of the plate. Slice the beef and place on top of the mashed potato. Spoon over the red wine sauce and drizzle the horseradish cream. Slice the wild mushroom strudel as per photo and place to the side of the beef.