Beef and carrots

Or more simply, beef cheeks with carrots, for a good table of 8.

The term “bœuf carottes” is an expression used in the film Les Ripoux attributed to the policemen who interrogate suspects by making them “simmer for a long time over a low heat”, as they said.

Buy 8 fine cheeks from your butcher and have them trimmed, then 8 fine carrots that would make

Priapus, the god of gardens, blush, but not the tail! A few small carrots that you will slice thinly for the sauce, 2 large onions, 2 cloves, a handful of button mushrooms (local ones), a leek, belly of a good pig to make nice lardons, a stick of celery, thyme, bay leaf, a clove of garlic, a spoonful of flour, oil.

Lightly brown the cheeks, which you will have floured, in a large casserole where the vegetables can dance barely 5 mm on each side. Keep the sediment in the casserole and slip the lardons in, which, as they brown, will make the cooking base for the vegetables that you will have peeled, sliced and cut beforehand. With your casserole thus seasoned, add the vegetables and stir with a wooden spoon so that each ingredient takes on the taste of the other. Season lightly.

Add the liquid with a bottle of modest but robust wine that will withstand the long discussion: “red Entre-Deux-Mers, of course”.

Put the cheeks back in good company after trimming them closely to give identical shapes, which will go into the sauce with the little pieces.

You will need two good hours of cooking over a low heat, watching the level of the sauce, which must be above the preparation. If you think there is not enough juice, add a small cube of beef stock dissolved in hot water.

For a slightly original touch, a few very fine zests of orange peel, some Corinth raisins and just a little cumin will give your dish an oriental air.

After the two hours, check the cooking of the cheeks and their tenderness, taste the sauce and correct the seasoning, as the saying goes. Add your large carrots to cook for 15 minutes, which will let your sauce reduce and therefore thicken.

Some recipes suggest stopping the cooking and resuming the next day over a very low heat for an hour.

When the carrots are cooked and the sauce is well bound, well seasoned, and you have thus perfumed the household, a turn of the pepper mill and off you go, ready to serve: a fine scarlet cheek awaiting the kiss, a large whole carrot, and all of it coated with fragrant loves

Enjoy.

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