Beef Cheek Tacos

[uncle eddie]

I learned all about beef checks with this post. 1/2 waste - 1/2 delicious! Looks great. Like!

 

[S-met]

I swung through Sams on Saturday morning to see what was available in the meat department. They had beef cheeks, so I grabbed a package and headed back home to fire up the smoker. I trimmed away as much of the fat and silver skin as I could (which is basically half of the package). Out of a 7 lb package I ended up with about 3.5 lbs of meat.
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I did a simple Kosher salt and black pepper seasoning (not pictured) and into the drum at 250* with cherry chunks. Somehow, I didn't get any pictures with the meat on the smoker, but it took about 3.5 hours to get the internal temp to 165. I pulled them and put them into a pan with some beef base.
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Covered the pan with foil, and then back into the smoker for another 3 hours. I didn't put a probe back in to monitor the temp. I was pretty sure they would be fine when we were ready to eat. I took them out of the pan to pull, and they were basically like meat butter. They just fell apart.
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These made some fantastic tacos with some homemade salsa, onion and cilantro. This is too good and too easy not to be in steady rotation.
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I'm not 100% on this, but you essentially made beef barbacoa. Traditionally, its buried. I'm not sure if smoking or braising disqualifies it from calling it barbacoa, but its good enough for me. Great Job! I love the beefy flavor of cheeks. Very tough muscle, remembering that cows are ruminaters and tgeir cheeks are possibly the most used muscle in their body.

Those look great. Cheeks have the beefest flavor on the steer, or a tie with oxtail.

I trim mine too, but it's about 50:50.... some like to clean when they shred. Try adding onion slices for your wrapped step, then incorporate everything into your barbacoa.

THIS! All of it. If cooking whole, I'll trim some of the big stuff. I'm much more thorough if its going in stews.

Man that shredded meat shot is money!! I really want to try cheeks. Amazed you found them at Sams.

It varies by location, but one of 2 of 5 near (75 mile radius) me almost always has cheeks and oxtail. One of them almost always has tongue and honeycomb tripe too.

 

[forktender]

You really nailed those tacos....I could eat those 3 nights a week for a while without getting tired of them, I'm a Mexican food freak.

 

[bacon_crazy510]

Ehrmagerd! Tasty!!!! Great cook ... thanks for sharing!

 

[billdawg]

I learned all about beef checks with this post. 1/2 waste - 1/2 delicious! Looks great. Like!

That is spot on!

 

[billdawg]

I'm not 100% on this, but you essentially made beef barbacoa. Traditionally, its buried. I'm not sure if smoking or braising disqualifies it from calling it barbacoa, but its good enough for me. Great Job! I love the beefy flavor of cheeks. Very tough muscle, remembering that cows are ruminaters and tgeir cheeks are possibly the most used muscle in their body.

THIS! All of it. If cooking whole, I'll trim some of the big stuff. I'm much more thorough if its going in stews.

It varies by location, but one of 2 of 5 near (75 mile radius) me almost always has cheeks and oxtail. One of them almost always has tongue and honeycomb tripe too.

Thanks S-Met. Our Sams has tongue and tripe as well on a pretty regular basis. I guess that's what you get in South Georgia.

 

[daveomak]

I'm a fan of cheeks and those look AWESOME !!!! Wish I was there...

 

[chopsaw]

WOW ! That looks fantastic . Really nice work .

 

[Bearcarver]

Looks Great !!
Mighty Tasty!
Like.

Bear

 

[briggy]

Well now I need to find cheeks - those look just amazing.

 

[yankee bill]

Those look absolutely delicious! Taco's de Cabeza is my favorite dish from the few Mexican restaurants around me that actually serve "real Mexican food". And most of those are now using the cheeks for their Cabeza dishes vs actual cow head. That's some good stuff! FWIW, I've seen Beef Cheeks at our local Walmarts here in the past (VA. Bch. area), but not sure if they still have them.