How do you properly cook oxtails?

[Fugu]

With the addition of the orange peel, cinnamon stick and star anise, you could have used 5 spice powder. The Chinese use this on their roast pork and some duck recipes.

A peanut stew popular in Philippines, called Kare-Kare, is particularly good with these cuts of meat. The dish has a West African origin and may be more suitable to western palates. The Philippine version is served with sauteed, fermented krill as an added flavouring/seasoning.

Your picture looks yummy!

[Pille]

Hope nobody minds if I update this old thread.

I've had oxtail twice during the last few weeks. First time slowly braised at home with root vegetables and dark beer (full report, more photos and recipe here):

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Then again last weekend at friends' place, who cooked oxtail in a Dutch oven with mushrooms, wine, carrots etc - again, extremely delicious.

Oxtail is such a cheap and flavorsome cut, so we're totally in love with it at the moment, and looking forward to trying it in many more dishes.

Has anybody come across really tasty recipes recently?

[santo_grace]

Found out today it is the year of the Ox, so this thread seems timely. We served braised oxtail as a course for our NYE dinner. Treated them like shortribs and cooked them in a homemade bbq sauce. Delicious.

We had planned on serving the Oxtail Daube from Paula Wolfert, but when we did a test run a couple of weeks beforehand it did not turn out well. The meat paste you make from the pigs foot, fat and other ingredients was a disaster. I think I didn't have enough liquid in the dish.

[Kerry Beal]

Found some nice looking oxtails in the bargain bin today - need ideas! Thinking something asian - help!

[annachan]

I love mine with a lot of vegetables! I first make a stock with the oxtail (usually overnight in a slow cooker - just oxtail and water) then transfer to a large stock pot and add in my vegetables. Carrots, onions, celery, cabbage, tomato and some garlic. I sometimes add mushrooms. Diced potatoes if you want some carb. I let everything cook down, usually adding some beef and/or chicken stock as well. Season with salt and pepper to taste. I also throw in some Worcestershire sauce. If you like it more as a stew, then use less liquid. You can thicken it as well with the thickener of your choice. I generally like it as soup. I love to serve it over some rice or pasta, then add Tabasco. My husband prefer his top with Worcestershire sauce instead.

[onrushpam]

This reminds me that I haven't been over to The Training Table for a long time. It's the dining room for FSU athletes @ breakfast and dinner, but "common" folks can eat there for lunch. They make awesome oxtails... braised and served over creamy grits with collards on the side. Yuuummmmm! I need to call and find out when they are serving them. It used to be every Thursday in winter.

[Katie Meadow]

Cheap oxtails? Not around here. But as for something Asian, I find oxtails make a terrific Pho or a simpler version of same. Brown the oxtails in a heavy soup pot and remove. You could use other additional beef and beefbones for richer flavor. Brown onions, a little carrot, a couple of chopped stalks of lemongrass, some fresh ginger, garlic, a couple of star anise. Add water for broth and a splash of fish sauce. After two or three hours at a simmer I strain the broth, and pick off the oxtail meat for the soup. Defat the broth however you prefer. I pour the heated broth over cooked rice noodles or wheat noodles and garnish with a squeeze of lime, green onions, some thin slices of serrano chile, shredded cilantro and thai basil.

[scubadoo97]

Not cheap here either. Averages $5/lb

I most recently used them for making pho. They made a great pho stock after which I cleaned them and used the oxtail meat in another dish so I got two meals out of them.

[Soup]

Love oxtail. Love them in soup, braise in sweet soy with bit of root veggies and also love the jamaican style with rice and peas. Is there really bad oxtail?

Only problem is the price. They cost $5 to $6/lb. Pretty pricy for what use to be consider in cheap cut of meat (I'm talking 70's around the DC area).

[scubadoo97]

They average $5/lb where I am too. Yeah a lot of dough for mostly bones. I have to look at it as what can those bones give me. Usually a couple of meals out of a pack.

[catdaddy]

TaaaaDaaaaaaaaaahhh!

Oxtail, the end result!

They were as good as all of you told me they would be, I am so pleased!

Oh, my.

[nonblonde007]

Thank you! I have had time to reinvent this wonderful cut of meat many times and have loved every sort of prep that I tried with it. Amazing that it works so well with any ethnic twist you give it. Lately I have noticed the price of this once lowly cut just sky-rocket! What is UP with That?! Did everyone just suddenly "discover' What a great piece of meat this is? Unfortunate. I use it less and less now, meat per ratio kind of thing.

[Karri]

If you're looking for a bit of a crisp - roll them in cornflour and brown in lard, this way even after braising, etc. you will still have a bit of a difference in texture.

[chris-s]

I’ve cooked this twice: I think it’s a Burton-Race or maybe Raymond Blanc dish

Take a whole oxtail & braise it whole till tender.

When cool, split it down one side (the flatter side) and carefully tease the meat from the bone so you have a flat sheet of oxtail.

Pipe a line of chicken mouse along the centre, reform the meat into a tube around the mouse, wrap in cling film and braise again to cook the mouse. Cut into pieces to resemble a section of oxtail: the chicken mouse is supposed to look like the bone in the centre.

Reheat in the de-fatted & reduced stock and serve.

What does it taste like? Oxtail.

Is it worth the considerable effort? Doubtful

Will I do it again? Only under extreme duress

[dcarch]

Every recipe I have found and picture I have seen suggests a gooey sausy dish. Is oxtail something that cannot be crisped? Is there something to the texture or componants in this cut that doesn't allow for searing or frying for a crispy outer layer?

I like ox tails. :-)

First pressure cooked, then roasted.

dcarch

[heidih]

I love the little blast of super tender meat as you pop it out of the segment. That said, I am also dismayed at the price jump. Even in the Chinese market they are hyper pricey whether cross cut or whole tails.

The big chain Chinese market used to package oxtail cross cut slices mixed with tendon at a reasonable cost- I would stew it with masses of greens and we ate it with the starch of the day- usually rice.

[scubadoo97]

dcarch, cool plating and the oxtails look really tasty roasted.

[ChrisTaylor]

Am in the process of preparing an oxtail soup. The end product is to be a very intense soup served in a very small glass (say, 50mL liquid per person) with a dumpling filled with the oxtail meat. I have already purchased glasses of a size and shape that will allow me to place a dumpling in there and then mostly cover it, alligator-in-the-swamp-like, with the soup (which, incidentally, is based on Escoffier's oxtail soup).

I have picked the meat off the bones, along with a bit of the fat, and flaked it and put it aside. I don't want the dumpling to be just oxtail meat. What would some sensible pairings with the meat be? Things that have popped into my head include something very loosely and generically Chinese--napa cabbage--or perhaps just some herbs (parsley and chives, say). But other things have popped in. Some kind of mushroom, maybe, altho' the soup is very intense, so I don't know if a big earthy hit of mushroom would help matters. I guess what I want to do is have a nice foil for the richness of the soup and the meat (the soup, by the way, started as a brown stock made from pork neck and beef shin, the meat included in the case of the shin, and was then loaded up with oxtail), but at the same time not take away too much from the intent of the dish: it's a small serving because it's meant to be a big gutsy beefy soup.

Thoughts? Theories? Suggestions? The 'theme', if you must call it that, of the dinner is Escoffier. Altho' as you can tell by the idea of throwing in some cabbage and using store-bought dumpling wrappers, I'm prepared to slacken the leash I gave myself when I came up with the theme. I'll be making the dumplings in advance, freezing them and then, on the day, steaming them at the last minute. I considered maybe doing some sort of filled pasta instead, even tho' I have no truck with pasta machines, but given I have numerous other things on my plate, such as knocking out some Espagnole and then demi and then Madeira sauce, plus a few other dishes, I want to keep things reasonably simple.

[Nayan Gowda]

Boiled beef and carrots is a very classic combination. A fine dice of cooked carrot mixed in with the meat of the dumpling would work well; the sweetness offsetting the other umami characteristics.

Or you could take some Bearnaise elements (shallot, tarragon, touch of vinegar) and incorporate that with the meat.

Or perhaps a small, old-fashioned European style herbed dumpling?

[fledflew]

I think that a little bit of diced water chesnuts and just the smallest bit of fresh herb would be an excellent addition to the picked oxtail meat as the dumpling filling. The water chesnuts would be just crispy enough to offer the slightest texture contrast without being too assetive in the crunchiness or taste department. A little bit of herb (parsley or chive as you mention, or maybe even cilantro) just to freshen things up and keep the oxtail and broth from feeling too heavy.

The mention of carrot in the previous post sounds excellent as well. A fine dice of blanched turnip or parsnip could also work well there. It would keep the feeling of a rich, slow cooked, cold weather dish as opposed to the water chesnut and herb option which I imagine would brighten it up a bit. I'd steer clear of mushrooms and napa cabbage since they wouldn't offer any discernible textural contrast and might be difficult to differentiate when it's in your mouth.

If black truffle appears in any of the other courses, I'd mix the chopped peels into the oxtail filling.

[Okanagancook]

Scored some nice fresh oxtails today. I want to sous vide them and have been looking at various times and temps. I want them to be like medium rare tender beef short ribs so I'm thinking 56C for 48 hours.

MC uses higher temperatures but I'm not sure I want them really well done however there is one MC method at 60C for 100 hours....has anyone tried oxtails sous vide?

[EnriqueB]

Yes, I've prepared MC's oxtail recipe (100 h @ 60ºC) twice. Everyone who ate them agreed that they were excellent, though we've never tried any other temps/times to compare.

[Okanagancook]

Thanks for the feed back. I'll give it a try.

With some of the oxtails I made Paula Wolfert's oxtail daube today. Looks amazing.

[Pille]

Oxtail Daube. Courtesy of Paula Wolfert and Recipe Gullet. If I were ever in one of those "Last Meal" situations, this just might be the one.

Bookmarking this recipe right no, to use with my next lot of oxtail. But here's another wonderful oxtail dish, oxtail ragout with celeriac mash. Highly recommended!

[Franci]

Pille, your oxtail looks so good!

I need to try that Oxtail daube myself.

It's a very much appreciated dish also in this house.

My favourite so far is the braised oxtail from Fat (Jennifer McLagan). Picture is not the greatest but I truly love this.

coda di Francesca Spalluto, su Flickr

This is a Oxtail terrine, coming from Anissa Helou Fifth quarter

And this, still from the same book: Jamaican oxtail stew. I don't think it's a very traditional recipe thou