ON THIS WEEK’S episode of Dinner SOS, check kitchen director and host Chris Morocco is joined by beef skilled Dave Yasuda of Snake River Farms and award-winning pitmaster Tuffy Stone to assist caller Jon grasp the artwork of cooking beef cheeks.
Jon isn’t simply your common barbecue fanatic—he has 4 people who smoke, a thriving YouTube channel, and even turned his facet hustle right into a small catering firm outdoors of Pittsburgh. Whereas he’s mastered the smoking of many various meats, from pulled pork to brisket and venison to guinea hen, success has eluded him relating to one minimize specifically: beef cheeks. Each of his makes an attempt turned out inedible and difficult.
Chris calls on Dave Yasuda of Snake River Farms, a premium meat purveyor that breeds cattle to supply high-quality American Wagyu beef. Dave is an skilled on virtually each minimize. He explains that when cooking beef, the place the meat comes from on the animal impacts the cooking course of. With beef cheeks, you may have a really properly used muscle (cows are always chewing), which implies the meat could be very flavorful but very robust.
Dave recruits good friend and chef Tuffy Stone, writer of the barbecue cookbook Cool Smoke: The Artwork of Nice Barbecue, to help. Tuffy’s first tip is that Jon ought to ask the butcher for pre-trimmed beef cheeks, which have already got a few of the hardest membranes and fats eliminated. They focus on optimum cooking temperature of the smoker (Tuffy suggests elevating the warmth from 225 to 275 levels to achieve a better inner temperature and lift the purpose of peak tenderness, which can assist to interrupt down extra collagen and connective tissue. He additionally advises seasoning the meat (placing a rub on solely half-hour to an hour earlier than to keep away from curing the meat with salt) and the significance of introducing moisture through the cooking course of (basting with butter and spritzing with apple juice to maintain the meat hydrated). Plus, he shares tips about the way to know when your meat is completed and the way lengthy to relaxation it for earlier than slicing or shredding (the larger the minimize of meat means the longer the remaining time).
As for what to make with the meat cheeks, Dave suggests beef cheek tacos. Pay attention now to listen to extra tips about barbecue from these two specialists and to search out out whether or not Jon is ready to obtain the tender beef cheeks of his goals.
