I am Rich Harris and welcome back to my Simply Gourmet series, where I will be sharing my
kitchen secrets with you to take the stress out of entertaining and take your dinner party
to the next level.
In this episode, I am showing you my Hearty ox cheek ragu with homemade herb gnocchi.
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OK, so the first step is just to heat some oil in the pan.
The beauty of this dish lies in the beef.
I am using ox cheek.
It is one of the toughest cuts of beef because it does all the work.
Cows are always chewing, so, this is really, really tough.
But, it has worked really hard, so, it is full of flavor.
The only way to cook this is long and slow.
If we were to pan fry this now as a steak, it would be as tough as old boots.
So, what we need to do is cook it really, really slowly, break that meat down, and it
is going to be delicious, really rich and soft.
I'm going to season our beef with plenty of salt and pepper.
Just give it a quick rub.
And, then we need to fry these in batches, so just do them one at a time.
And really get loads of color on there, loads of caramelization.
Fry these hard and fast for a good couple of minutes.
Get loads of color on them.
And then take we them out of the pan.
And then we are going to start building our sauce.
So, our beef is nice and caramelized now.
Now it is time to add the shallots.
Straight into the pan, we are just going to fry these fast, just to take on a little bit
of color.
It is going to take a good 3 or 4 hours of slow cooking, but it is worth it, trust me.
So, now I need to add the garlic.
I have just got 2, finely sliced cloves here.
Do not worry about pureeing them or crushing them because they are going to disintegrate
with all the slow cooking.
So, straight in, 1 bay leaf, just add that, and some tomato puree, as well.
So next, we need to add the red wine.
Make sure you use quite a decent quality red wine, because the flavor is going to really
to show through in the ragu.
I would always say, never cook with a wine that you would not drink.
So, you just need to bring that to the boil.
Boil it just for a couple of minutes to burn off the alcohol.
Once you can just smell the rich wine flavors, but none of the alcohol burn, you are ready
for the next bit.
So, just a couple of tins of tomatoes,
and then about 500 mills of good quality beef stock.
And, then put the beef back in the pan.
Now, at the moment, that looks really, really liquidy.
But, do not forget, it will reduce right down in cooking as it is going to have a good 4
hours in the oven.
So, make sure the beef is completely submerged.
If you have any of the beef poking out of the top,what will happen is it will get a
bit dry and a bit crusty.
So, make sure it is all under the liquid and then stick a lid on.
Bring it up to the boil and then stick it in the oven for about 3 or 4 hours, around
about 150 degrees, and give it a stir every now and again.
For a full list of ingredients for this recipe, check out the description books.
A lot of people are quite daunted by the prospect of making gnocchi from scratch, but it really
is very simple.
I have got some really nice dry mashed potato.
It has just gone through a ricer and is really light and fluffy.
We want to try and keep these as light as we possibly can.
You could just make a plain gnocchi, but I want to freshen ours with some nice herbs.
So, I have got some parsley and some basil.
Just bunch them together,
scrunch them up
and give them a good chop.
OK so just scoop up the herbs and straight into the potatoes.
So to the gnocchi, we want to add a teaspoon of salt, 1 egg
and 150 grams of flour.
So, now, this is where we need to be quite careful.
Just work the mixture very lightly until it just comes together.
If you start working the dough too hard, you are going to end up with gnocchi that is like
little potato bullets.
So, we want to just work it very gently.
So, now , it has all started to form together to make a rough dough.
We just need to get our hands in and bring it together.
Take about half the dough, turn it out onto a work surface, and just bring it together
to form a rough sausage shape.
Get some flour and just give the work surface, and the dough, just a light dusting of flour.
So, just chop the dough in half and just work with relatively small sections to start with.
And then, just cut small bite sized pieces of gnocchi and flick away with a knife.
Now, grab a baking tray,
dust it with a bit more flour, and drop the gnocchi onto the tray.
So, what I like to do, is just to pick up gnocchi and with floured fingers just pinch,
slightly, so you end up with a kind of bow-tie shape.
And, these lovely little grooves in here will pick up all the sauce.
So, put these in the fridge and I will just let them firm up a bit before we cook them.
Our gnocchi is in the fridge.
Our ragu has been cooking for a good 4 hours now and the meat is falling apart.
It smells incredible.
So, what we need to do now is just take the meat
and just carefully lift out and put it on a chopping board.
Get rid of our bay leaf.
And, this is the magic bit.
This is where you realize why you have used the beef cheek.
It is just going to fall apart.
So, just taking a fork.
Just push with the back of a fork, and shred the meat.
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Alright so that is looking amazing.
The meat is all shredded up.
It is ready to go back in our sauce and then all we need to do is warm it through.
These have been in the fridge for about 10 minutes and they are nice and firm and ready
to go in the pan.
A pan of water at a nice rolling boil.
And, I am just going to drop all the gnocchi straight in.
And, then, these are going to cook, literally, for about 1 to 2 minutes.
OK, so I've drain my gnocchi, now we want to put them back in the pan with just a little
bit of the ragu.
So, we just want to add a couple of spoonfuls just enough to coat the gnocchi.
Give it a bit of a shake around.
OK so there we are, all ready to plate up.
A nice mound of gnocchi and then a little bit more ragout over the top.
And then, just to finish with, a nice grating of Parmesan cheese.
So, there we have it.
My sumptuous Ox Cheek Ragout with Herb Gnocchi.
Guaranteed to impress.
And, if you have enjoyed this recipe, look for it soon.
Back in the kitchen again soon, for another episode of my Simply Gourmet series.
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