Oxtail Pot

Page 184

Cuisine: English/Scottish | Course Type: Main Courses

(1 review)

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Recipe Review

A classic English recipe, but I have to say that it's quite hard work (as is often the case when making the best of cheaper ingredients). The basic method is straightforward but it does take long, slow cooking, and then getting the meat off the large, oddly-shaped bones in respectable-looking pieces is a bit of a struggle. Also there's a lot of fat on an oxtail so it really is a good idea to do the cooking a day in advance, then chill the sauce and remove the excess fat. On the upside there's a lot of flavour in all the bones and sinews, and more meat to salvage than might appear at first glance.

I used my slow cooker which meant I had to cut the vegetables rather smaller than would be usual in a stew of this kind. They didn't look great on the plate so I removed them before freezing the extra helpings, rubbed them through a sieve and added them to half a cup of soup mix (green and yellow split peas, green and red lentils, pearl and flaked barley) simmered in beef stock until very soft, and made a surprisingly good soup.

(1) useful  

Comments

bunyip - 28th March 2014
I prefer using ox cheek to oxtail because of the fat. However, I have a nifty gadget for removing fat from hot sauce. It's a jug with the opening to the spout right down the bottom. you tip the sauce through the strainer on the top, wait for the fat to rise, release the stopper and pour out the liquid, leaving the fat in the jug!

Soup sounds good.

Queezle_Sister - 28th March 2014
Ox cheeks! Ox tails are hard enough to find, i would imagine the cheeks are even more rare - but probably worth seeking out.

kaye16 - 29th March 2014
Cheeks really shouldn't be rarer than tails. After all there are two for every tail! ;-)

Sovay - 31st March 2014
I've seen those jugs! Only in quite small versions, though - 1/2 pint capacity - which would not be ideal for de-fatting stock in significantly larger quantities. I haven't seen ox cheek on sale since Norwich Market back in the early 1980s, though the butcher at my local market would probably get me some if I asked. However I have saved and clarified some of the oxtail dripping for use in recipes from older books, and also for lubricating Yorkshire pudding tins (dripping or lard make for better risen Yorkshire puddings in my experience - no idea why).

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