Slow Braised Beef Cheek Ragu with Parpadelle – tender, falling apart chunks of beef cheek in a rich, red wine tomato sauce tossed with parpadelle. Jump to Recipe
Leaving Auckland never seems to get any easier. The packing, the goodbyes, the solo flight back to Melbourne. It always takes a few days to adjust to the university routine – a few days of feeling slightly out-of-sorts, a little misplaced and harried and disorganised, like the sudden uprooting and transplant from home leaves my mind hanging somewhere in the middle. This time was particularly challenging – jetlag and a stomach bug followed me home from Vietnam for five blurred days of catch-ups, appointments and baking, and the trip back to the airport came all too quickly. Walking away into the departures hall after the final drawn out hug, tugging on an overfilled suitcase and sporadically turning around for a final glimpse and wave, is the toughest part.
It isn’t always like that – I’m not awfully homesick, or wishing I wasn’t in Melbourne – I love it, and feel like I am in the exactly the right place at the moment. But those goodbyes are always so unapologetically difficult, especially when you’re the one walking away. It gets drummed into us that from age eighteen, we should be ready, ecstatic to “leave the nest” – make a break, ditch the parents and siblings and start our “adult” lives. A quick, clean separation, a smooth transition from childhood homes to reality. And maybe some people pull this off.
I manage for the most part – and on Sunday night it was the absolute best to walk in the door to the smell of dinner cooking and a house dinner with the girls I live with. But there are still times where I don’t feel quite grown up enough, or a little lost, and just wish we could rewind a couple of years, though those occasions occur less and less often. I can’t imagine I will ever stop missing home a little. That’s the other thing – I’ve started slipping out “home” when I talk about Melbourne, but usually refer to Auckland as “home” as well. Maybe I just need the two to coexist – one where I study and live most of the time, and the other which is always always just home to me.
This slow braised beef cheek ragu with parpadelle is a home meal. If there is anything good about winter, it is getting out that well-used cast iron pot to simmer away for hours on the stove, filling the house with a rich, comforting fragrance while rain pelts down outside. I made it last week for a family dinner, with my brother also home for university break and all six of us for once at the same table (and not just on a phone loudspeaker!).
Something about the chemistry of transforming a cheap, tough, working cut of meat into tender, falling apart chunks is incredibly satisfying. The simple pasta sauce of tomatoes, red wine and beef stock is rich and complex, thanks to the hours of slow cooking and the quick soffrito base. Soffrito underpins most Italian sauces – it’s that sauteed mixture of onion and carrot, cooked in a bit of oil until translucent and tender, sticking golden bits of flavour to the bottom of your pan that become the deep flavour foundations of your sauce later on. It’s worth the extra 10 minutes cooking time and final deglaze with a splash of red wine before you add the rest of your ingredients.
That rich sauce and melting chunks of beef cheek coats thick, al dente parpadelle – a wide pasta which gives a large surface area for the sauce to cover, dipping into the hollows between the strands. Bowls are sprinkled with a sharp grated parmesan and bright italian parsley, and I served it with a fresh loaf of crusty ciabatta, smeared with fresh melting butter, and oven roasted winter broccolini and brussel sprouts. Winter + home comfort in a steaming bowl, seriously.
The best part is that it isn’t that difficult – it takes half an hour to put the sauce together, and from then on there is very little work involved. Just leave it on a low heat for 2 and a half to 3 hours, then take the lid off and reduce the sauce for a bit, shred the beef and put it all together it again. It is so low maintenance that I had no qualms leaving for a haircut and getting my brother to set a timer and turn the pot off at the beep.
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Cook’s notes:
- I used beef cheeks here – a cheap, lean cut laced with tough connective tissue which becomes meltingly tender with a few hours braising. They are available in supermarkets in Auckland, but if you can’t find them there your butcher should be able to supply them for you. Beef shin would be a good alternative.
- Sear the beef first to keep in all those juices during the slow braise. Depending on the size of your beef cheeks, it will take 2.5 – 3.5 hours to get them tender, including 30 minutes with the lid off to reduce the sauce. Once you remove the beef, you can bring the sauce to a boil to reduce it further before you return the beef to the pot.
- The recipe makes about 8 cups of sauce, which is enough to serve about 12 people, depending on hunger levels and how much sauce you like. You can always freeze half to use at a later date!
- 1.3-5 kg beef cheeks (this was 3 large cheeks for me)
- salt and pepper
- 1 large onion , diced
- 4 cloves garlic , minced
- 1 cup diced carrot
- 1 cup red wine
- 2 cups beef stock
- 800 g crushed tomatoes
- 100-130 g tomato paste
- 3 bay leaves
- 1-2 teaspoons sugar , to taste
- parpadelle (depending on how many people you are serving)
- parmesan , finely grated to serve
- 1/2 cup parsley , chopped
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Cut any large bits of fat off the beef cheeks. Pat dry with a paper towel and season generously with salt and pepper.
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Heat a large, heavy based pot over high heat with a tablespoon of olive oil. Add the beef cheeks (one by one if they don’t all fit on the bottom) and sear on each side to brown all the edges (a few minutes per side). Remove and set aside.
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In the same pot, turn down the heat to low and add the onion and garlic. Sautee for 5 minutes, stirring to avoid it catching on the bottom.
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Add the diced carrot and cook gently for 10 minutes until just softened.
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Add a splash of the red wine and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the rest of the red wine, the beef stock, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste and bay leaves and stir to combine.
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Add the seared beef back into the sauce. Bring back to a simmer, then cover and turn to a VERY LOW heat and keep at a low simmer for 3 hours. Remove the lid and simmer for a further 30 minutes or until the beef cheeks are almost falling apart.
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Remove the beef from the pot and set aside. Bring the sauce to a rapid simmer for a further 20 minutes to thicken the sauce. Taste and adjust sugar for seasoning (this may depend on what brand of canned tomatoes you use as some have more sugar than others)
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Meanwhile, use two forks to shred the beef into bite-size pieces. Return to the sauce and stir to combine. At this point, you can either serve the sauce, refrigerate until the next day for even better flavour, or freeze half for future use. See cook’s notes above for quantities.
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Boil the pasta according to packet instructions.
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Meanwhile, heat the sauce in a large fry pan with a splash of the pasta water to loosen if it has been refrigerated or frozen. Add the cooked pasta to the sauce and toss with tongs and a serving spoon to thoroughly coat the pasta in the ragu sauce.
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Serve with grated parmesan and finely chopped parsley. I also served it with fresh ciabatta and oven roasted broccollini.
agree so much with what you said about leaving and home. i just finished my second year of college, and even though i held out for a long time calling my apartment/school my home (when it’d slip out, i’d correct myself immediately ha), it is (one of mine) now.
Haha I did exactly the same thing with the slightly awkward correction, but I just accepted that I’m going to be calling both places home for a long time! Thanks so much Heather, glad I’m not the only one 🙂 hope college is going really well for you!
Holy cow girl, this looks SOOO good. I’m swooning over the beauty of this dish and how gorgeous your photos are! I want a big bite, right nooow 😀
Thanks Rachel! Oh we are having the leftover ragu sauce that had been frozen for dinner tonight and I am SO excited – especially since it is like 5°C today in Melbourne..
Hope your week is going well girl! 🙂
Looks like the best bowl of comfort food ever. Beautiful pics as always.
Thanks Rebecca! x
Wait, you’ve been to Auckland as well as Vietnam!? That’s cray cray! My housemate made a delicious lamb shoulder ragu last night… that’s the only thing that’s keeping me from debilitating food envy over this post! This is perfect, proper winter food.
PS I voted for ya under Baking & Sweets and also Best New Voice – good luck!
Hahahah yeah I flew straight from Hanoi to Auckland, had 5 (way too short) days in Auckland then headed back to Melbourne the night before uni started!! So I think I probably started the second semester more tired than at the end of the first…but definitely worth it for the holiday 🙂
Oh lamb shoulder ragu sounds amazing! Now that I have the slow cooked ragu sauce bug I am really keen to try lamb and duck as well. I bet a big warm slab of your sourdough would be perfect with it 🙂
Thanks so much for the vote as well! I know it is a hugely long shot but I guess you never know if you don’t try hah xx
This looks SO amazing! Delicious and incredibly comforting. Your photos are stunning 🙂
Thank so much Sarah! <3
Oh my! These pasta looks like the stuff dream are made of. Perfect to cure any homesickness.
Thanks Nicole – definitely the ideal homesickness cure. Food is definitely medicine sometimes!
Hi Claudia, amazing dish this brings back memories of Sunday morning for me my mother and father making tomato sauce and sometimes using tough cuts of beef to enrich the flavor. The use of beef cheeks is wonderful so robust and when broken down due to long cooking times it becomes melt in your mouth delicious and with the parpadelle absolutely a pair made in heaven. It is hard leaving the nest but I believe beneficial for your life to grow. There is so much to see in this world and so much to experience, and you no that there is always a place at the table when your return home. Great post and story, lovely dish.
Have a wonderful rest of the week.
Cheers, Loreto!
Hi Loreto! Thank you so much for your words – I agree, looking back I know that even in the past 2 and a bit years since I moved out of home, I have changed and grown significantly – which I tend to notice more when I go home for holidays! I love how connected our memories of families are too the food we eat, like the slow cooked sauce your parents made – so cool. Hope you are having an awesome week 🙂
It certainly takes some time to adjust when you leave the nest. Personally, I thought it was easier once out of school and totally on my own. Being away at college never felt like home to me, like a place that was mine, something I could put my stamp on. This dish on the other hand, could make any place feel like home, even if just for a few hours. So rich, so comforting, perfection on a plate! Just stunning, Claudia!
I completely agree Kathleen! It has definitely been easier this year living in an actual house that is mine to come home too, compared to college the past 2 years where it is more of a temporary dorm room. Thanks so much, so lovely to hear from you! x
So so craving pasta right now – especially with this winter weather! lovely photos Xx
Thanks so much Thalia! It is so so cold in Melbourne today (snow down to 300m – crazy!) and a bowl would be so perfect. xx
Claudia…the pictures, the story stunning. All of it. I cannot imagine having to adjust like you did…but perhaps the one thing that does tie all the places together is good food…and great friends 🙂 Have a wonderful day!
Thank you so much Mila! Great food and great friends is absolutely true, you are so so right 🙂 the most important things! Hope you are having a lovely week xx
Love your photos, Claudia, beautiful job! And I’m definitely jealous on you for that awesome bowl <3 🙂
Thanks Ana! The bowl is gorgeous, isn’t it? They are handmade made by Holly Houston of Houston Ceramics in Auckland 🙂
Holy moly. I LOVE beef cheek – it’s so tender that it sounds like the perfect accompaniment for a slow-braised ragu. This is the kind of dish that smells like “home” and comfort. I also still have two cities I refer to as “home” – do we always coexist like this? Hmmm..
Thanks Sarah! I did try this with beef brisket the first time, but something about beef check was just so much more tender and melt-in-your-mouth, so worked perfectly in ragu. I feel like we probably will have this co-existence, but maybe as you build your life more in your new home it becomes more dominant – but where you grew up will always be home too – maybe, anyway! Hope you are having a good week 🙂
ohhhhh my goodness this looks absolutely delicious!!!! and i too hate goodbyes, however, that is always when my love for food kicks up a notch and inspires me to be incredibly creative in the kitchen (and gain weight :/)
This pasta looks delicious! Awesome recipe!
Thanks girl! So perfect for the cold weather at the moment x