My talented design friend Sharon Westin-Shaw posted a photo of slow-cooked beef cheeks on social media that looked so good, I had no choice but to ask her for the recipe.  My Paleo version is below.

Slow cooked beef cheeks in red wine sauce

6 beef cheeks
Half a celery, cut in 2cm pieces
6 carrots, cut in 2cm pieces
Two brown onions, cut in 2cm pieces
1 punnet of button mushrooms
Half bottle merlot
3 cups beef stock
Dried Thyme
2-3 tbs Tomato paste

Place vegetables in slow cooker to make a bed for the cheeks. Dollop in tomato paste and give a good shake of thyme. Trim beef cheeks, season well and coat in flour. In a frypan, brown off cheeks in batches. Place cheeks in slow cooker, on top of vegetables.

Pour wine into pan used to brown off cheeks to deglaze and burn off the alcohol. Pour wine and stock over cheeks in slow cooker.

Turn on slow cooker and cook for 6-7 hours on low. Turn (the other) cheeks every hour or so.

Once cooked, take out cheeks and keep warm. Drain off sauce, keeping vegetables. Place sauce in saucepan and simmer on low to medium heat for approx 15 minutes to reduce.

Serve cheeks with mash and a good serve of sauce with the vegetables on the side. The veges aren’t pretty but my goodness they taste good.

Paleo version

Follow all the steps above, but don’t coat the beef cheeks in flour, instead, dust one side of beef cheeks with Tapioca flour (arrowroot).

Rather than serve with mashed potato, serve with mashed sweet potato, or a sweet potato and pumpkin mash or mashed jerusalem artichokes.