Pork Cheek Stew

Yesterday I made pork cheek stew with fried potato slices and a dollop of mayonaise. It’s a Belgian type stew which uses beer and is also nice with some potato mash. I used a frying pan and a cast iron pot. You can also use just 1 pan for this, but I find this easier. Normally I use thick apple syrup, I think this can be replaced with molasses just don’t use maple syrup. This recipe will serve about 4 people.

First dice up your onion and and pan fry with your butter until golden. While the onion is frying, chop the garlic cloves and put in the cast iron pot. Dice the pork cheek in nice bite size chunks. When the onion is ready, put it in the cast iron pot and start browning your seasoned pork cheek. When it’s pork is browned add it to the onion and garlic.

The frying pan now has some sticky brown stuff on the bottom which needs to be deglazed. Pour in a bit of water and your stock cube. Dissolve the cube and add the beer. Scrape over the bottom to release the sticky brown stuff and pour everything into the pot.

Add thyme, cloves, bay leaves, juniper berries, mustard and 1 spoon of dark syrup. Pour in enough water so the meat is covered. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to let it simmer. After about an hour check the taste of your stew. I put in another spoon of syrup and it made all the difference. Cook for another hour and then thicken the stew with some cornstarch or water/flour mixture.

This stew was so nommy nommy. We always have our Belgian style stews with fries or potato slices and a little bit of mayonaise. You can play around with the ingredient, it’s not a very strict dish.