Welcome back! To quote my dearly departed mother, "Spring has Sprung" in Cincinnati. Albeit very slowly and cautiously, with a few winter tantrums tossed in just for fun. But things are starting to green up and my bulbs have hesitantly peeked out of the ground. You might notice that this post is a good month after the last one. Well, Easter happened, and that combined with a home improvement project and my need to lick my wounds after the previous Orange Cake debacle meant just taking a break. But Kate and I are back at it today, and I debut my first go around with oxtails.
Ingredients and Directions
"I don't supposed this will appeal to a high salaried woman like you but it's very cheap and jolly good. Wash an oxtail and cut it in pieces at joints. Cover with boiling water; cook gently for three minutes, drain, dredge with flour and saute in a little pot with a sliced onion. Put in a casserole with 2 cups canned tomatoes, 1 teas. salt, 1/8 teas. each of pepper & paprika, a touch of meat sauce and a chopped carrot. Cover and cook in a slow oven for 3 1/2 hours. Ten minutes before serving you can add 1 cup of peas if you like them."
Jolly good? Count me in. Very cheap? Eh, not so much anymore. The vogue of 'nose to tail cooking/dining', defined as cooking and consuming the entire animal has driven up prices of what were less desirable and more affordable cuts in Kate's day. Getting oxtail was a bit trickier than I thought. During a trip to
Jungle Jim's International Market Meat Dept. and talking with the butcher there I come to find out that they have trouble keeping it in stock. Many cultures have treasured recipes using oxtail, and hey, a cow only has one. It took me a couple of weeks but I finally scored a package at $7.50 a pound (that sound you hear? Kate rolling over in her grave). And to those of you wondering, in Kate's day oxtails were probably really oxtails, i.e. the tails of oxen a castrated male bovine. Now they're usually just cow tails (male or female), but are still called oxtails for simplicity's sake.
Thoughtfully, my oxtail was already cleaned and cut at the joints. I followed the directions, but when it came to 'a touch of meat sauce', I was stumped. To me, meat sauce is Italian bolognese. I just can't believe that is what is called for here, especially the 'touch' reference and given the fact that there is NO Italian blood in the family. Scouring the book, I don't find another reference to meat sauce and no recipe for it so I just decided to go with
Worcestershire sauce, which seems like the thoroughly British thing to do.
Once again, the scarcity of spices concerned me, but it really shouldn't have. 3 1/2 hours later, the meat was fall of the bone tender and the ''gravy' was incredibly flavorful. Less 'casserole' and more 'stew' I eliminated the peas, not that I don't like them but that I just didn't have any. Favorite daughter tasted it and didn't die, but SIL dug right in. Dear husband took one look at the cooked carrots and passed and the world's most perfect grandchild used his favorite word "NO!" to loud effect.
Verdict? Delicious. Would I cook it again? Given hubs complete aversion to stew, probably not. But I might consider using oxtail and the wonderful flavor it imparts in the next beef stock I make.
Welcome back! To quote my dearly departed mother, "Spring has Sprung" in Cincinnati. Albeit very slowly and cautiously, with a few winter tantrums tossed in just for fun. But things are starting to green up and my bulbs have hesitantly peeked out of the ground. You might notice that this post is a good month after the last one. Well, Easter happened, and that combined with a home improvement project and my need to lick my wounds after the previous Orange Cake debacle meant just taking a break. But Kate and I are back at it today, and I debut my first go around with oxtails.
