I'm a huge believer in cooking in layers. A perfect example would be the smoked oxtail.
Smoke it, let the meat and fat render, let it absorb the roman flavor of that wood smoke.
Whatever you decide to use, and then you start building another layer of flavor with your fresh
aromatics, your thyme, your garlic. Then another layer of flavor. Adding in your heat from your
scotch bonnet peppers, letting those oil go, then you add on top of that by putting the
smoke oxtail, and your braising liquid and you just let it ride and thicken. There's so many
layers right there, that the end result can't help but be something amazing and delightful.
It's one of my favorite meals, it really is. This, this was a staple growing up in the islands of
Jamaica, and I'm happy to share this with you. now oxtail is really tricky, you can get it in
multiple sizes, different shapes. I love the thicker bits, like this. These are the
parts that people are going to fight over. You know? Because that meat is going to pull back,
you're going to get those openings where the juices and the marrow mix. It's just going to have
so much depth in there. But then you'll have small ends of the tail, like this. Which are still good,
don't get me wrong, they really are. But these are definitely going to cook up, and go a little bit
uh faster on the smoker. So I'm going to be very mindful of where I place these on the kamado. Now,
if you have to special order these from your butcher, ask them for about this type of a
width. About an inch and a half to two inches thickness, and just try to get as big of pieces
as you can. Because we're really going to rely a lot on the fat and the collagen to break down,
and help thicken our stew. We're not gonna add any sort of a corn starch to thicken it. We're
just gonna let it run and take time with it. So if you want this dish, start early in the morning,
get it going. It's like a brisket, but it's not going to take as long. let's get into it. now
for the base seasoning, it is extremely simple. Salt, pepper, and some browning.
Browning is an island version of like a reduced-down molasses, or something of that
nature. That's the closest way I can identify it, and that's going to help give us our color.
And it's okay to be heavy-handed with your salt here.
Later on in the process we're going to be adding lima beans to this mix, or butter beans, and
those are going to pull a lot of the salt away. So it's okay to start heavy now, and then add later.
But as you build your broth, make sure you taste, and salt is needed.
Make sure we get each piece here. Now the pre-prep for this is also very simple.
All I did was rinse it in water, lemon juice, and vinegar solution. Not a brine, just rinsing and
you go through piece by piece. Because if you get it from a butcher, sometimes they may use
a cleaver, or a band saw to slice. And the slices may not always be perfect. So you may get little
scraps of bone fragments that come off. You just want to feel around and make sure that's not in
there. because the last thing you want to do is cook it, serve it, plate it, and take a bite, and
you chip a tooth. This, this bone is not going to give your teeth will give, before the bone does.
So now that we've generously salted our first batch.
Get some coarse black pepper on there, build that texture. Aid in getting a nice little bark.
And you can use any type of wood when smoking with this.
Today we're using pecan. You can use apple. You can use hickory, oak,
whatever is available, whatever is readily and easily accessible in your area. All right. Now,
for the browning. A little goes a long way. I'm just going to toss this around.
Make sure we get each one evenly coated. Now as far as our setup on the blaze,
we're keeping it low and slow. Like I said, at roughly 225 degrees. We've got both baffle plates
in. So there's no heat coming directly up, it's coming right around on the exterior portions.
Keep that in mind as you're setting up. This is ready to go onto the smoker, let's get cooking.
I used pecan this go-around, and it's really amazing because it adds a certain depth. It's
different than something like a hickory, or an oak. Oak just really burns hot, which is also
really great. But that, coupled with everything else like I said, it's about experimenting. I've
made this dish with multiple woods, and this is what i found works best. Because I know that I've
got the two baffle plates inside making the full circle, we're not doing the half moon. I know
that the center is not going to be as hot as the outside perimeter. So I'm going to make sure to
put my meatiest and thickest portions around the exterior, so that they get a fair amount of heat,
but they don't overcook. So a small piece like this I'm not going to put right out here.
Probably going to start off in the center. Big thick chunk like this,
I'm going to make sure it goes on the perimeter. And we're going to cook this,
let it smoke 225, low and slow for about an hour and a half, two hours.
And I'm setting mine where I'm standing it up. I'm not setting it
on its side on the fat, just so the meat gets evenly coated with smoke and heat.
And we're good. For me, I wanted to impart some of my own techniques into it by smoking it. Because
I realize it's such a dense piece of meat that that bone is going to act as a heat conductor,
and allow it to really cook in a different unique way. That the fat, and the collagen,
and the marrow all throughout can render, and aid flavor, and absorb the smokiness. These are
perfect. Got that nice caramelization happening at the bottom there. I really see the smoke doing
this thing. I'm gonna take these off. You'll start to feel they're getting nice and tender.
let all that fat, and marrow, and everything else render out in our dutch oven. we're gonna
add our aromatics, our broth. Aromatics are gonna include some garlic, some fresh thyme,
green onion, white onion. They're going all in. Of course some scotch bonnet, free heat.
All right guys, so we've let the blaze come up to temp
way up because we want to make sure we're going to get a nice base of flavor. So i
want to be able to start searing and getting a nice little, not really a char, but bringing
out the oils in all of our aromatics. And you can always test it by dropping in a little bit
of your onion. When you get a little sizzle you'll start to see the edges start to bubble up a bit,
and that's great so I know our oil is hot. there it is, you can hear it going now.
There's that sound. There's that ASMR for everybody. Now the way in order I'm going to
put everything in is a little important. I'm going to add in my onions first.
Just gonna sweat them a little bit.
Get those green onions in there.
So the heat element for this dish for our smoked oxtail is scotch bonnet. It is an
amazing flavorful pepper. It's like the cousin of a habanero. They look a little similar. However
scotch bonnet looks more like a pumpkin, versus a habanero's stretched out. It's a bit longer,
and the flavor profiles are completely different. Habaneros are just hot, you know? But a scotch
bonnet has that certain tang almost like a vinegar acidity to it. And it's so rich and powerful,
and you could really make this dish using one, and you're going to know it's there. But I love
heat so I used quite a few for this dish. If you don't want that extra heat, clean the seeds out.
But I put everything in there. Seeds, body, and stem, the whole ordeal. And it's gonna render down
and release those flavors amazingly. This would sort of be like the holy trinity, plus two,
in Jamaica. Almost every Jamaican dish starts with green onions, scotch bonnet,
white onion, garlic, thyme. Very aromatic, cooking layers cooking building flavors.
Garlic last because we don't want it to burn.
And our thyme.
I really wish you guys could smell this. I really do. Smells so great. It's fragrant,
all the oils, everything's doing what they should do.
And that's all cooking is. If you get out of the way, and you let your ingredients
work together and do all the hard lifting, you're just monitoring the temperature at that point.
Okay. Now we're going to start adding in our oxtail and some of our broth. Make sure you
have yourself a really good sized dutch oven for this. You want a lot of room. Either that, or only
cook a little bit of oxtail, because we need that room for that broth to build and thicken.
So all the moisture all that fat is going to render out, and add a lot of flavor.
Once again, cooking in layers. All right.
Now we can start adding our stock. Our liquid is going to be chicken stock.
You can hear how that sizzling lowers and cuts down.
This chicken stock is going to be our braising liquid. Some people use water. I personally
like to use chicken stock. It's already got a good amount of flavor in it. If you're worried
about your salt content, make sure you use an unsalted chicken stock, or make your own stock,
or do a vegetable broth. I'm going to add in some of our lima beans with the juice.
Lima beans or butter beans, whichever. Give everything a little shimmy. Let things set.
And as this cooks, as it braises,
the meat's gonna get so tender, it's just gonna push itself away from the bone, and things are
going to settle. So don't be too concerned if you have a few pieces that are sitting up higher
than the others. Once we put the lid on here and close it, it's just going to roll perfectly.
Top it off with just a little bit more.
I'm not going to fill the dutch oven all the way to the top because it's going to
bubble. It's going to burble up. I want to leave a little bit of room in there.
You're probably going to be just fine for the first hour. So just put the lid on,
close it up, and just let us do its thing, and you'll really start to smell everything
breaking loose and coming together. All right guys. I've done my part,
the rest is up to the ingredients. It's up to the oxtail. I just have to make sure I mind my fire.
At this point, you can increase the temperature. You can bring to about 300 to 350 degrees,
but keep an eye on it. Make sure you're watching it. You don't want to go up to like 450 or 500,
because you don't want anything cooking too quickly. This is a slow process. Let that
collagen break down, let that fat break loose, let that broth build and thicken. Let's close her up.
I remember the flavors, I remember the ingredients, I remember the aromas,
and I remember how I felt when I had them. You know certain dishes I just never even
wanted to touch, because they were like those are grandma's dishes, those are mom's dishes.
My smoked oxtail is an homage to my grandmother. I love when she made it when I was growing up,
I love when she makes it now. I don't care how good you think mine is, hers will always
be better. It's just one of those things. I think it's an emotional connection. Okay.
It has cooked down. I don't know if you guys remember the consistency of it before,
but that fat, that collagen, has thickened up our broth.
You can really tell that it's cooked down. The consistency is right where I want it.
It's not too runny. It's coating my spoon just fine. The meat has pulled away from the bone,
it's literally falling off as I just use the spoon to push on it. It's nice and tender. It is ready
to serve and enjoy. You can serve this numerous ways. Have it just like this, or pour it over
some nice white rice, or some coconut milk rice with beans. Whatever your preference, go to town.
Now whenever you go to a restaurant, any Jamaican restaurant for takeout or such like that,
or even sit down, always, and I mean always ask for more oxtail gravy. That's how they know that
you've had it before, and you know that it's the good stuff. Just gonna slather that up.
Got some nice hefty chunk right there. Get another little bit for the side.
Boom. Top it off with a little bit of a finely sliced green Onion.
And you're good to go. That's it. Jamaican oxtail steel over white rice. Enjoy guys.
I get asked often how to get into barbecue, like what's the best thing to do,
how to do this, best smoker. The best response I give people, it's always the same response;
Find a culture that's not your own, study the people, and then the people will lead you to
the food, and then you'll branch out from there. That's how you learn new techniques. That's how
you learn new ingredients, new flavor profiles, and when you understand that you can couple it
with some of the things you already know. And I find that's sort of the best way to learn
something new. To go in a completely blind, and get lost. Discover new things. You don't know
what it is? Google it, search it. It's never been easier to attain information about something that
you're interested in than there is right now, and from there you just keep building and building.