Pork cheek recipe
Guancia di maiale
For years I have held a strong aversion against pork, but properly prepared this pork cheek recipe is phenomenal.
Guancia as pork cheeks are known with a more delicate Italian word is one of the cheap meat cuts, in spite of the fact that it is utterly delicious. It is also rather labour intensive. First you have to polish the meat by removing the outer tendons, and then it should be cooked over low heat for at least a couple of hours. That done you will have a generous sauce and the most tender meat imaginable. And it does not even taste like pork.
Ingredients
1 kg pork cheeks
4 shallot onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 parsnip
100 g celeriac
4 bay leaves
2 sprigs of thyme
5 cloves
250 ml white wine
Olive oil, salt and pepper
50 ml double cream
50 g dark chocolate
Preparation
Remove the outer tendons from the pork cheeks and fry them in olive oil until nicely browned.
Put the pork cheeks aside and discard excess frying fat.
Clean, peel and chop all the onions and vegetables coarsely and fry them for a couple of minutes.
Pour white wine over the vegetables and bring it to the boil.
Return the pork cheeks to the saucepan along with bay leaves, cloves and thyme.
Add cold water until the meat is covered and cook over low heat and under lid for 2-3 hours.
Stock up on liquid if necessary.
When the pork cheeks are very tender remove them from the saucepan and run the liquid through a sieve.
Discard onions and vegetables.
Melt chocolate over a water bath and stir with double cream.
Heat up the strained sauce, stir in the chocolate ganache to make it thicker and add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve this pork cheek recipe with boiled carrots, brussels spouts and beets cooked in orange juice.
More slow cooked meats like this pork cheek recipe:
I want to travel with you. I would never go hungry and meals would be far beyond mere sustenance. Wow!
And I’m sure my knowledge of coffee would improve too:)
Mmmm, no aversion to pork in our house – well we just crave it most of the time, being in Turkey. ;) These pork cheeks look lovely. Never had them before.
Julia
Nahh, I wouldn’t start to look for pork cheeks in Turkey. But lamb cheeks should not be half bad either.
Yum!
:)
Thanks for the recipe. It really looks delicious. I have to copy it into my recipe notebook.
My pleasure:)
What type of white wine would you suggest for this recipe? Thanks.
I’m not much into white wines, and the pork cheek recipe works just as well with reds, but you can find some very good Chardonnays from Tuscany, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and even Sicily that I think would make a nice match.