These beef cheeks will just melt in your mouth and the jus will have you drooling for more!

Preparation time: 30 mins

Cook time: 5 hours

Serves 6

Ingredients

Beef Cheeks

125gm of Jammin' JeRk Hot Marinade

3 tbsp olive oil

1.5kg beef cheeks (6 beef cheeks)

3 carrots, roughly diced

4 garlic cloves, chopped

4 shallots, chopped

6 stems of fresh thyme or 1½ tsp dried thyme leaves

4 dried bay leaves (or 3 fresh bay leaves)

4 bottles of Red Stripe beer (or other lager beer)

3 tsp salt

Creamy Mashed Potato

800g Sebago potatoes

250g butter

500g Rock Salt

Salt and pepper

Buttery green peas

300g of green beans(washed and ends snipped)

50g butter (salted)

Instructions

Prepare the beef cheeks and cut off any large, fatty membrane.

Take 100gm of Hot Jerk Marinade and rub onto beef cheeks.

Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large heavy based casserole pot over high heat.

Sear the beef cheeks on each side.

Remove beef cheeks onto a plate, loosely cover with foil to keep warm.

Turn down the heat to medium high and heat the remaining 1 tbsp of olive oil.

Add garlic, shallots, and carrots. Sauté for 3 minutes or until shallots are becoming translucent.

Oven Directions

1. Pour 2 bottles of beer into the casserole pot (with the shallots mixture) and stir to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pot. Bring to simmer for 1 minute.

2. Add 150gm of Hot Jerk Marinade + remaining ingredients to pot and stir. Ensure cheeks are covered with enough liquid (use extra beer if required)

3. Put lid on and cook in the oven at 160C for 3.5 to 4 hours until the cheeks are very tender. Check during the cooking that the liquid is not boiling, but instead is gently simmering. Turn at least once during cooking.

4. Remove cheeks from oven. Open the casserole pot and remove enough jus from the pot for a sauce. Place the pot back into oven.

5. Strain the jus to remove the lumps and add 1 tbsp flour and 1 tbsp butter to thicken the sauce.

6. Bring the Sauce to simmer over medium heat and simmer until it turns a darker brown colour and reduces to a gravy consistency – about 3 to 5 minutes.

7. Remove from heat, cover and keep warm until ready to serve.

Creamy Mashed Potatoes

1. Place sea salt in baking pan and fill the base.

2. Wash(scrub) potatoes to remove any excess dirt. Place the potatoes on top of salt evenly spaced and put in oven(at about the 1 hour mark of cooking the beef cheeks)

3. At the 3 hour mark of the beef cheeks being done. Remove the potatoes from the oven they should be cooked(stick a fork in and it should come out clean)

4. Cut potatoes into halves or quarters depending on the size.

5. Place potatoes in a potato ricer and squeeze all into a medium size pot

6. Add 250g butter to pot and fold with spatula til smooth.

7. Add salt and pepper to taste. Use more butter to adjust the consistency to your liking.

8. Use a stick blender if you want it to be very smooth (this is what I did).

Buttery Green Peas

1. At the 3 ½ hour mark of cooking the beef cheeks, place the peas in the skillet with enough water to just cover them. On the stove top, bring the skillet to a simmer for 10 minutes.

2. Drain the water from the skillet and add 50gm of butter

3. Stir in skillet for 5 minutes and then turn off stove.

To serve

1. Serve beef cheeks on Creamy Mashed Potatoes, drizzled with a generous amount of Sauce. Garnish with the buttery green peas. YUM!