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Chipotle Pork Cheek Stew

This beautiful pork cheek stew has taken its place firmly at the top of our favourites list to have come out of the Gran Luchito test kitchen. Our friends over at Market Porter sent us a box of some of their favourite underrated cuts to play with, and we were over the moon to find pork cheeks included in the mix.

If you’ve never cooked with pork cheeks before, we can’t recommend them highly enough. They are perfectly suited to long, slow cooking which unlocks and releases all of their natural marbling and big flavour and that’s exactly what we did with them. We served the pork cheek stew with a really tasty potato, celeriac and parmesan mash.

If cooking low and slow is your thing then you really should really check out our slow cooker pork pibil recipe and if you have the time our chicken mole recipe.

Chef’s tip

If you’ve got a slow cooker, this is a perfect dish to make in it.

Prep time

1 hour
Cook time

5 hour
Total time

6 hour
Ideal for

Dinner
Make it

Mexican
Serves

4-6

This recipe uses

Chipotle Paste

Find us in the
Mexican Section

Ingredients

For The Pork Cheek Stew

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 red pepper, finely chopped
2 tsp chipotle paste
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp dried oregano
100g (3.oz) plain flour
800g (1lb 12) pork cheeks
4 garlic cloves, bruised but left whole
500ml (17fl oz) Chicken Stock
100g (3.oz) wild mushrooms, like girolles, roughly chopped
3 tbsp dry sherry
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
a handful of flatleaf parsley leaves, roughly chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the Potato and Celeriac Mash

1 celeriac, peeled and diced
3 small potatoes, peeled and diced
5 sprigs of thyme, leaves removed and roughly chopped
5 garlic cloves, crushed
olive oil
500ml (17fl oz) milk
40g (1.oz) butter
70g (2.oz) Parmesan cheese, grated

For The Broccoli

200g (7oz) purple sprouting broccoli
1 tbsp olive oil

How to make it

To Make The Stew

Put the olive oil in a pan over a low–medium heat and fry the onion, red peppers, chipotle paste, cumin seeds and oregano for about 15 minutes until the onion has completely softened. Put to one side.
Mix the flour with a good pinch of salt and pepper.
Lightly dust the pork cheeks in the seasoned flour and fry in hot olive oil until browned on all sides. Do this in batches if required, but don’t wash the pan yet.
Add the pork cheeks to the onions with the garlic, chicken stock and mushrooms.
Add the sherry and vinegar to the pan in which you fried pork cheeks and use a wooden spoon to scrape any bits that stuck to the bottom as you bring the liquid to the boil for a few minutes. Pour it into the pork cheek mix.
Put the pan over the heat once again, turn up to high and bring to the boil. Turn heat to low, cover with a lid and cook for about 5 hours, or until the pork cheeks fall apart at the slightest touch, stirring occasionally. This is a good time to crack on with the potato and celeriac mash

To Make The Potato and Celeriac Mash

While the stew is cooking, put the potatoes and celeriac in a pan with a little olive oil, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper and cook for about 10 minutes until the vegetables have a little colour.
Add the milk and top up with water until the vegetables are completely submerged. Bring to the boil and cook until the vegetables are tender when pierced with a knife.
Allow to cool slightly, then drain off and reserve the liquid. Put the vegetables in a food processor (you’ll probably have to do this in batches) with butter and Parmesan. Blitz to a purée, adding enough of the reserved liquid to make a lovely smooth consistency.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.

To Make The Broccoli

Add the broccoli spears to a pan of boiling water and cook for 2–3 minutes. You can also give them a few minutes in a hot griddle pan with a little olive oil, salt and pepper to add a nice little-charred flavour and colour.
Serve with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, a sprinkling of Parmesan and a little chopped parsley.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.

To Serve

When ready to serve, remove the pork cheeks from the stew and pull apart into chunks with forks. Mix back into the stew and reheat, stirring through a handful of parsley.
Serve with the potatoes and broccoli.