09 December 2009
Recipe For Oxtail Casserole
I made a delicious oxtail casserole the other day. Sophie brought a pack of oxtails - there were about 5 decent sized ones and 4 smallish ones.
I made it Sunday and we ate it Monday - it's one of those meals that's best slow-cooked and then eaten the day after. It matures nicely and by the time we ate it 24 hours later the meat just slid off the bones; everyone loved it, even the kids.
I am not 100% sure how I made it; it was just one of those meals that happened and I didn't really pay much attention to how I did it, but it came out good. Here's a crack at the recipe.
Ingredients
Pack of 5 - 8 oxtails
2 lamb's livers, or 1 calf's liver
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, halved
1 leek, topped and tailed and roughly cut
1 carrot, peeled then diced
1 glass of red wine
1tsp Steenbergs Vegetable Bouillon Powder
Some butter, olive oil and sunflower oil
1. Put the onions, garlic and leek in a food processor and pulse a couple of times until smallish pieces, but not completely minced. Gently sweat in a mix of butter and sunflower oil for 8 or so minutes until translucent. This triumvirate of oniony flavours is the perfect base for any stock-based meal; gently fry them up then add a carrot and some seasoning and it can be the base for almost anything.
2. While the onions etc are gently cooking, brown the oxtail in a saucepan with olive oil until the meat has sealed all around the pieces of oxtail. Do the same for the liver.
3. Add the diced carrots, Steenbergs Perfect Salt, vegetable bouillon powder and bay leaf and sweat for a couple more minutes.
4. Add a generous slug of red wine and simmer for maybe 2 minutes. Add the tin of drained haricot beans.
5. Add the oxtail and liver to the pot and cover with water. Stir it together and bring to the boil. Boil vigorously for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down low and cook slowly for 2 - 5 hours. I actually forgot about it and we cooked it for 5 hours on Sunday, then reheated it on Monday, which seemed to do the trick.
6. Serve with boiled rice and carrots, then mop up the delicious gravy with bread. Wonderful.
