Oxtail stew

How to prepare stewed tail . Within Spanish gastronomy there are recipes typical of a specific autonomous community, which have crossed its borders to form part of the general repertoire.

This is the case of the meat recipe that we are going to talk about today, oxtail in red wine or oxtail from Cordoba . Elsewhere, like Seville, this dish is known as the bull’s tail .

It is a very old recipe, since Marcus Gavius ​​Apicius, a Roman gourmet (1st century AD), reflected in his De re cojilla , recipes with this delicacy. Later the cook Kitab al- Tabij, in his cooking treatise included recipes with oxtail , back in the 13th century. It was not until the middle of the 19th century, when the recipe began to form part of the repertoire of Cordoba houses, due, to be sure, as this was a time of boom in the bullfighting world and those who represented it.

It was the most humble family members in the city who, more out of necessity than anything else, waited for patients after each bullfighting celebration, for the businessmen to give them tails, ears, guts and the rest of the shell, reserving for themselves the most noble parts . It is a traditional stew , a stew of the meat with vegetables until it is very tender through slow cooking. I certainly encourage you to prepare it at home.

Preparation of the oxtail stew and vegetables

1. We ask the butcher where we buy the meat to cut it. Season the pieces with salt and pepper and flour them to brown.
2. We put a large saucepan on the fire with 3 or 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. When it is very hot add the pieces of the veal tail.
3. We cook them until they are golden brown everywhere. We withdraw and reserve.
4. In the same oil that we have used to brown the meat, we will fry the vegetables. If we see that the oil has been left with flour remains, we can discard it and use new oil. When the oil is hot we are adding the vegetables starting with the onion and the garlic well cut.
5. Brown for 5 minutes and add the diced bell pepper and carrots. We cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. Add the chopped leek, bay leaves and thyme branches to the casserole and leave the vegetables to sauté for another 10 minutes.
7. Peel the tomatoes and add them to the sauce in small pieces and salt. Let the vegetables cook for 15 minutes.

Tail cooking and final presentation

1. Add the red wine and the meat that we had reserved and cook over medium high heat, with the pot uncovered, for 10 minutes.
2. We cover the pot and lower the heat of the kitchen. Let the stew cook for 4 hours over low heat.
3. After this time we remove the pieces of meat, which must be very tender, and with the vegetable stew we prepare the sauce.
4. We can pass it through the mixer, through the pastry or even through the Chinese if what we want is a finer result.
5. We put the meat back into the pot with the sauce already prepared until serving time.
6. We serve the dish accompanying the meat with part of the sauce and with some braised or cooked potatoes as a garnish.
7. The quick option would be to prepare it in a pressure cooker or express for about 60 minutes. Always waiting for all the steam to come out of the pot valve before opening it.
8. Although I also tell you that it is not the same, but with the following trick, it can become as simmer.
9. We make the stew in the pot but only 45 minutes. We finish without the lid, normally on medium-low heat for another 45 minutes. We are testing the meat until it is syrupy and done.
10. If you prepare it the day before to heat it, it is best to use the same saucepan over very low heat, moving occasionally so that it does not stick to the saucepan.

You can see all the photos of the step by step in the next album.  

Tips and Recommendations for a Tailed Stew of Yummy

• The recipe that I show you is not of bull meat , due to how difficult it is to get from day to day. In this recipe we have used oxtail, although you can perfectly prepare it with beeftail.
• The difference will be in the time of the stew. While for the beef, braising it for 2 hours on low heat will be enough.
• For beef, we will need much more until the meat comes off the bone. It will take 3-4 hours to get it right.
• As it is not always easy to spend so much time hanging from a stove to the fire. Another alternative would be to cook it in the express pot. With 1 hour of cooking it will be enough for this dish, no longer poor but foodies, to reach its maximum splendor.
• This way it will be even richer, when we let the tail rest once cooked in its sauce. This settles, relaxes and absorbs substances and aromas of the sauce, with which he wins.
• Beef or beef tail meat is high in iron and has little fat.
• Its meat (you are going to see it) is mellow and very juicy, as if it were Milanese Ossobucco or the  Galician-style Xarrete made by friend Nacho.
• In addition, the vegetables that we have used in the stew are going to give the dish its beneficial point.