Ultra tender braised pork cheeks in wine sauce with shallots on a bed of mashed potatoes, a tasty tapa or main dish recipe coming straight from Spain.
Braised pork cheeks in wine sauce is a delicate yet powerful dish. Although the meat is tender and melts on your tongue, the flavour is outstanding. I encountered this dish on a tapas night in San Sebastian, Spain. Lost in a dark corner of a little plaza, in a place called “La Cuchara de San Telmo,” a heavenly place! It’s their star dish; they no longer have to write it down on the menu board since it’s so popular. It is served as tapas, which means a small portion. It was so good that we added to order it a second time. This recipe is my take on this famous dish called Carrilleras de cerdo al vino tapa!
Pork Treasure!
The trick here is to cook slow and long pork cheeks! They are so underrated; they should be the most expensive and exquisite piece of pork, but lucky for our wallets, it’s not… Cheeks got all the flavour, and it’s a relatively lean part. Its secret? The collagen! Which is a flavour bomb and, if cooked properly, gets so tender. For example, meat with lots of collagen, like ribs, needs a long and slow cooking process for the collagen to turn into this tender gelatine (jelly). Once that process is done, your meat will melt like butter on your tongue. A true pleasure!
Your butcher can leave the bone on; it will come off easily at the end of cooking. This cut is relatively small, so one isn’t enough for a main dish; I would always make two cheeks per person.
The Red Wine Sauce
Tips for a perfect, deep brown sauce (a.k.a. gravy) made from scratch: Chocolate! Yeah! You’ve heard me: CHOCOLATE! It’s a hidden secret of Grands Chefs... You need a tiny bit at the end of cooking your sauce with a touch of butter to give extra shine and texture, and voila! You get an unctuous, deep brown sauce for your pork cheeks!
Other Meals for Meat Lovers
Let’s do some Tapas!
Tender Braised Pork Cheek in Red Wine Sauce
Ingredients
The pork cheeks
- 4 pork cheeks (with bone if possible)
- 400 ml chicken broth
- 375 ml red wine
- 150 g shallots (peeled but whole)
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 tbsp dark chocolate (or cornstarch)
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 bouquet garni (or 1 tbsp of thyme)
The mashed potatoes
- 3 potatoes
- 500 ml warm milk
- 5 tbsp olive oil
- 1/3 tsp nutmeg (*optional)
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Cut off the white membrane on top of the pork cheeks… if any, and add salt and pepper to the cheeks (keep the bone if possible).
- In a pan or casserole, sear the pieces in olive oil until brown on each side (deglazed with the wine, then add to the oven pot to take all the flavours from the pan).
- Transfer the cheeks into an oven-proof container or casserole and add the bouquet garni, shallots, garlic, wine and broth.
- Cook in the oven at 180°C (350F°) for 2-2 1/2 hours, turning halfway through, occasionally checking on it and pouring some juice on the meat to keep it moist.
- Cook the potatoes in boiling water for 25 minutes or until tender.
- When the cheeks are done, reserve them and the whole shallots.
- Pass the leftover liquid through a fine-meshed sieve, put it into a pan, and reduce the sauce on high heat until it has evaporated by half.
- Mash the peeled potatoes with the milk, olive oil, nutmeg, salt and pepper.
- Add the dark chocolate or thickener (previously mixed with 3 tbsp of cold water) into the sauce and whisk until it thickens.
- Stop the fire and add the butter to the sauce to give it shiny finish.
- Take the bone off the pieces of meat (it should come right off).
- Serve the meat on the mashed potatoes, add a few shallots and cover with extra sauce.
Notes
Nutrition
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26 Comments
Hey man! The recipe looks delicious. What wine would you recommend braising in? A rioja?
Surely 😉
I cannot stress how tender these came out. I was seriously impressed with the outcome and the flavor. Next time I will make a bigger batch to serve some friends at our next dinner party. Have a blessed day.
I know! These cheeks are just melting on the tongue! Thanks for stopping by!
wonder if this can be done in an instant pot?
I do not own an Instant pot, but I bet it’s possible. Let me know if you venture that way!
Does it go in the oven with a lid? I’m about to put it in.
No need, hope you like it!
Hello, where does the garlic clove go?
We the shallots, thanks for letting me know. I’ve fixed it!
Thank you for the recipe. However points 7 and 9 are confusing. 7 doesn’t say what to pass through the sieve. And 9 doesn’t mention where to add the thickener. One would think to the potatoes because 8 is about potatoes.
Hi Eva! I’m sorry it was confusing, I did go ahead and made it clearer. Thanks for letting me know and I hope it turned out good!
I don’t have an oven, is there an alternative way I can do step 4?
Yes, simmering on the stove would work too.
This was superb. Super tender, and the sauce delicious. Addition of chocolate took it to an even higher level. The oven I used ran hot, so the sauce reduced more rapidly than expected. I recommend checking the pot during hour 2 in the oven. I noticed the reduction just before it was too late!, but it was easy to rectify by adding a little water,
Thank you for this great recipe.
Glad you liked it and could save it! I’ll add a note to check on it in the recipe card, thanks!
Not a comment but a question. When you say turn it halfway thru do you mean turn the pot or turn the cheeks over? Sorry, silly question but I want to be sure. So excited to try this dish!
Thanks Gloria for your question, I meant the cheeks. I’ll make it clearer in the instructions. Thanks for letting me know and let me know how you find it.
For the dark chocolate, is it cocoa powder, unsweetened chocolate (like baking squares), or like a chocolate bar (like Lindt 80% or something)?
Hi Beth, a simple piece of dark chocolate, like anything over 70% true cacao. It pure magic, just a tiny piece goes a long way!
Can i freeze this dish?
yes, like any stew, 3 months in the freezer.
Curious–does this really have half a bottle of wine in it?
Thanks!
Yep!
I tried this method and it worked flawlessly. Thanks!
This cleared up a lot of confusion I had on the topic.