Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Short Ribs and Oxtail


Schielke

Recommended Posts

in Singapore, i pay the equivalent of USD 10/kg for Oxtail which is mostly bone.

that's like $4.54/lb

Do not expect INTJs to actually care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant bastards with a morbid sense of humor. Telling them the obvious accomplishes nothing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why are these two traditionally unpopular cuts of beef so expensive? I cannot find them for less than $4.00 a pound up here in Seattle. Should I start shopping the Asian markets?

Ben

Ben; Some of the best Short Ribs and Oxtail at reasonable prices are available at the Korean Market on Aurora Avenue in Shoreline located in the same shopping center with Safeway at 156th Street at the southern end of the center.

Also they sometimes have both a even lower prices at the new Ranch 99 Market in on Aurora. [be sure to ask the cashier for discount card]

They are available in the International District at Lam's Seafood Market on Main Street east of 12th Avenue most of the time.

Irwin

I don't say that I do. But don't let it get around that I don't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My dad said when he first moved here, he was able to get them for free! I'm not sure if that's true or if he's just exaggerating, but I think you're right - the more people are exposed to how good they are, the more pricey they get.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why are these two traditionally unpopular cuts of beef so expensive?

Because chefs in fine restaurants have made them popular.

Yep. And cookbooks. Seen what they're charging for skirt steak recently? At my fancy butcher, hanger steak is almost as expensive as dry-aged prime t-bone.

It's all supply and demand.

As we all learn to eat and enjoy the best of foods we somehow become sublimily addicted to certain tastes , flavors and dishes.

Since there only minimual amounts of Skirt Steak, Hanger Steak, Oxtail, Chuck Short Ribs , Shortloin [Porterhouse, NY Steak, Filet Mignon, Triangle Tip], Rib, that leaves a lot of everything else.

Therefore as more under utilized cuts become higher in demand the price increases.

I feel that there are many times I prefer to eat Oxtail, Short Ribs or Skirt Steak then I want to eat a New York Strip and others also feel the same way, so up goes the prices.

Sometimes i'm sure that certain of us wish that we'd kept our secrets so the price would remain lower, but our hearts are in the right place.

Share and enjoy for the good of all who can.

I used to buy Morton Bay Bugs for less then $1.00 per pound, then started to publicize "Slipper Lobsters" and look what's happened.

Slime Head Fish was 15 cents per pound, now as "Orange Roughy" it's much more expensive.

Skate was only pennies now it sells for $4.99 pound in Seattle. Fermented and Pickled it much more expensive as Kim Chee.

But will someone explain to me why "Tomatos" and "Green Peppers" have become so expensive?

But remember even with Atkins all LIVER is still a bargain except Gooselivers.

Irwin :rolleyes:

I don't say that I do. But don't let it get around that I don't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And tongue. Tongue is still a great deal.

regards,

trillium

If Tongue is reasonable then your buying it at Asian or Mexican Markets it was $7.98 per pound at Shorelines Central Market. To me that not even close to reasonable.

Irwin

I don't say that I do. But don't let it get around that I don't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And tongue.  Tongue is still a great deal.

regards,

trillium

If Tongue is reasonable then your buying it at Asian or Mexican Markets it was $7.98 per pound at Shorelines Central Market. To me that not even close to reasonable.

Irwin

Yikes! That's not reasonable at all. I'm buying it from the farmer who grows the beef (pastured finished, organic feed). Tongue (3.99/lb) is one of their more economical cuts, as well as shortribs, oxtails, bone-in chuck, brisket and top sirloin roasts. Steaks, even flank or hanger, are now out of my league... I ate shortribs for lunch today though, so I'm not complaining.

regards,

trillium

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If demand has gone up, why don't I ever see anybody buying these cuts? Most people are still turned off by the mention of oxtail and I can't see the average cook doing much braising of short ribs.

Ben

Because you don't shop with me or my friends? In the past month, I've bought both of these and lamb shanks. And I don't cook meat very often. I guess that makes me not average. Guess we already knew that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's kind of a bummer. Like discovering a good, cheap wine and then somke damn wine critic rights it up and you can't affor it any more. Onglet was destined to become hip it's just soooo French -- but short rib inflation caught me by surprise.

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have found that if I purchase the 'tails where less than choice quality beef is sold or in the Cryovac pachages, the 'tails are inavariably tough. Choice quality oxtails will not be tough and will only need a couple of hours of braising and the meat will almost fall of the bone. Actually i like to suck the meat off the bone!-Dick

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dinner this evening was oxtail soup. You do need to buy at least 'choice' grade because if you purchase the kind that now comes cryovac packed you will indeed be purchasing 'oxtails' and the result will be tough meat. -Dick

budrichard:

There is no choice grading of Oxtails.

Your correct that it's better to buy them freshly cut and packaged unstead of packer or distributor packed.

The major difference is that the fresh packed Oxtails are generally cut with a Knife by a competent meatcutter or butcher while the institutional packages are cut hap hazardly by a meat saw.

Oxtails disjointed with a knife taste much better and cook with a clearer tasty broth. Minimum or foam in broth or braising liquid and more easier to eat.

The other cuts generally sold ungraded are Flank Steaks, Hanger Steaks, Skirt Steaks and often when purchased as boxed meat and not broken by the butcher the Short Ribs.

The Chuck Ribs are the best tasting and meatiest. The Ribs cut from the base of the Rib while cutting Spencer Steaks or Rib Eyes are more reasonable, not as meaty but still very tasty.

I've prepared Oxtails from almost every type of Bovine Animal including Water Buffalo and have never had a Oxtail that after proper Cooking wasn't tender or delicious. Can't say that about any other Beef cuts.

Irwin

I don't say that I do. But don't let it get around that I don't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know if this will be of interest, but Heston Blumenthal just published this recipe for oxtails, and it's amazing. I expanded it and cooked the oxtails and short ribs simultaneously in a deep roasting tray, and it was kind of extraordinary. He goes for very low heat - @200F/90C - for 7 or 8 ours. And check out the different liquids and aromatics he uses.

"Gimme a pig's foot, and a bottle of beer..." Bessie Smith

Flickr Food

"111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321" Bruce Frigard 'Winesonoma' - RIP

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know if this will be of interest, but Heston Blumenthal just published this recipe for oxtails, and it's amazing. I expanded it and cooked the oxtails and short ribs simultaneously in a deep roasting tray, and it was kind of extraordinary. He goes for very low heat - @200F/90C - for 7 or 8 ours. And check out the different liquids and aromatics he uses.

Thanks for the tip -- what an incredible-sounding recipe! Lots of ingredients and steps, but nothing difficult or complicated. I liked his tip about the sherry vinegar. :biggrin: I've had some oxtails sitting in the freezer the past couple of months -- now I know their fate.

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

"...in the mid-’90s when the internet was coming...there was a tendency to assume that when all the world’s knowledge comes online, everyone will flock to it. It turns out that if you give everyone access to the Library of Congress, what they do is watch videos on TikTok."  -Neil Stephenson, author, in The Atlantic

 

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know if this will be of interest, but Heston Blumenthal just published this recipe for oxtails, and it's amazing. I expanded it and cooked the oxtails and short ribs simultaneously in a deep roasting tray, and it was kind of extraordinary. He goes for very low heat - @200F/90C - for 7 or 8 ours. And check out the different liquids and aromatics he uses.

I have been meaning to ask about this for some time -- what are short ribs called in England?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why are these two traditionally unpopular cuts of beef so expensive? I cannot find them for less than $4.00 a pound up here in Seattle. Should I start shopping the Asian markets?

Ben

Ben:

Consider a trip to Burian.

Waynes Market doday had terrific Beef Tongue for $2.78 per pound and Oxtails at $2.19 per pound. Thats the lowest prices i've seen anywhere in the Seattle are in a couple of years.

Also had a specials on Fresh Goat and Live Land Turtles.

Live Dungess Crab was $2.79 per pound.

Enjoy.

Irwin

I don't say that I do. But don't let it get around that I don't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have found that if I purchase the 'tails where less than choice quality beef is sold or in the Cryovac pachages, the 'tails are inavariably tough. Choice quality oxtails will not be tough and will only need a couple of hours of braising and the meat will almost fall of the bone. Actually i like to suck the meat off the bone!-Dick

or an hour in the pressure cooker.

Do not expect INTJs to actually care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant bastards with a morbid sense of humor. Telling them the obvious accomplishes nothing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know if this will be of interest, but Heston Blumenthal just published this recipe for oxtails, and it's amazing. I expanded it and cooked the oxtails and short ribs simultaneously in a deep roasting tray, and it was kind of extraordinary. He goes for very low heat - @200F/90C - for 7 or 8 ours. And check out the different liquids and aromatics he uses.

I have been meaning to ask about this for some time -- what are short ribs called in England?

There are no 'short ribs' in traditional English butchery, as there are in France and the US. Mostly the meat is used for chuck or mince.

Some butchers call them flanken ribs. Others have tried to pass me off with the brisket. Mostly, it involves a lot of pointing and "um-ing" and "ah-ing" and negotiating where to cut.

Someone showed me this page which I printed up, and has solved my bovine anatomical problems.

Now I can point in peace.

Edited by MobyP (log)

"Gimme a pig's foot, and a bottle of beer..." Bessie Smith

Flickr Food

"111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321" Bruce Frigard 'Winesonoma' - RIP

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...