So I made the beef cheeks.
As is ofen the case with the sub-$4/lb price point meats, they come with the Xmas toy disclaimer: "some disassembly required". Net yield about 60%, but then I also got a couple stir fries' worth of trimmings and a nice load of beef fat to render.
The braising liquid was 3 sweet onions, sweated, and most of a bottle of red wine reduced to syrup with star anise, dried orange peel, and some weird citrusy allspice-sized Thai peppers. Oh yeah, and some soy sauce, anchovies, and a slug of Marmite.
For the cook I decided to min-max it a little more... bake/steam @ 225degF for 4 hours, followed by bake/steam @ 425degF for 12 min. The result is what you see here... lots of excess water from the copious steam, so I took out the protein & reduced it on the stovetop. This is being cooled separately from the meat; once defatted I will recombine. This is two meals' worth - one I'll vac-seal & freeze; the other will be Tuesday dinner after kids' martial arts practice.
This is fall-apart tender and juicy with good browning - a fantastic result. 3 hours would have been good too, more slice & chew... but I've a mind to take that other half and shred it for ravioli filling, so I took it all the way.
PS Shelby, it being Sunday, a gang of other prep went down too. Deboned & seamed out a pork shoulder roast; sliced the muscles into strips that would fit down the food processor tube, down which they went after a half hour in the freezer - pork for stir fry. Some of the pork was ground too, and the bones/trimmings/fat went into the pressure cooker for stock and lard. Put a side of coho salmon on the cure for gravlax. Large amounts of vacuum-sealing was done, most notably several dozen top-notch moon cakes purchased in Taipei, but also ribeyes, dover sole, and tuna... can you tell we went to Costco? Alas I ran out of motivation to process a duck - next weekend.
Dinner was nearly 100% from Costco - except the bacon, which is home-cured unsmoked five spice bacon from my next-to-last berkshire belly.
Seared tuna over romaine dressed with nuoc cham, with some blanched asparagus & rosted peppers kicking around in there - my daughter loved it. The stinky triple-creme slices were to mark territory for me to eat, since apparently it's like kryptonite for Asians.
