welcome friends welcome back to the
studio
so today i was at the grocery store and
i thought you know what what i really
want for supper
is oxtail stew so i picked up an oxtail
and i had the
butcher chop it up for me
and so the butcher ran it through the
band saw and cut it into
much more manageable pieces and at the
big end of the tail they cut it in a
couple of different directions
so that it's easier to cook now oxtail
is pretty much
exactly what it sounds like it is an
ox's
tail or traditionally it was an ox's
tail and oxen
are castrated bulls um cattle
oc castrated bulls of the cattle species
just like a regular cow except the bull
that's used or traditionally was used as
a draft animal
a working animal and so
by the time they were done working the
meat was really tough but the tail was
fantastic
if you're buying oxtail today
in north america at a butcher chances
are
it's just regular cattle tail and
there's the very tip
of the cattle tail it's just regular
cattle tail
not from an oxen not from a working
animal so i'm sure the
flavor isn't as strong as it might have
been a couple hundred years ago when it
was a working animal a much older animal
but the flavor is still amazing and in a
long
slow braise it breaks down
and the sauce that it creates is just so
unbelievably
anxious but i haven't made it in a long
time
because just like everything else at the
grocery store the price of oxtails
is creeping up and they are becoming
something that is more and more
difficult to find there's only one
grocery store close to us that i can get
them at
so i've salt and peppered them i'm going
to heat up some oil in the bottom of
this dutch
oven and i'm going to toss a little bit
of flour
in with the oxtails and we're going to
brown these off
and just like any time you're browning
don't crowd the pot just put a few in
at a time
that's about half
and just let them settle and brown
really well
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now of course with browning we're not
trying to cook it all the way through
we're just trying to
brown the outside and start developing
flavor so i think these are pretty good
i'm going to take them out and set them
aside while i cook
the rest
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okay i think that's brown enough so i'm
going to pull the rest of the ox tail
out
then i'm going to put in the aromatics
and four aromatics i have the classics
onion celery and carrot they're going to
be the first ones in
and check the oil in your pan if you
need extra oil put some
in but i don't need any so in goes the
celery carrot and
onion
and i'm not trying to brown it i just
want to soften the onion
and get that to start to get a little
bit of color
just a slight amount
next in is some minced ginger
minced garlic
[Music]
okay the ginger and garlic are really
starting to smell really
fragrant next in is this and this is a
chopped up scallion i'm using a jamaican
scallion and just the bottom part
the white and purple part the green
parts i'm going to save until we serve
the dish
and so this is a jamaican
scallion it's purple at the bottom and
they're not
perfectly round they grow in clumps and
so they'll all be clumped together
the flavor is really nice a little bit
different than a regular green onion
[Music]
next in is some tomato paste
[Music]
about half a can i guess i'll put that
in
and just start to cook it a little bit
i don't want to overstate the amount of
cooking tomato paste needs
you just want to start to caramelize
some of the sugars
and if you don't do this step it's not
that big of a deal it really isn't there
are so
many celebrity chefs and internet chefs
that tell you that you have to cook out
the rawness or you have to cook out
and i used to believe that and i used to
do it religiously
and then i tried it different ways and
realized it really doesn't matter
especially in a dish like this where
it's going to be a long slow braise in
the oven
that caramelization is going to happen
over the three and a half or four hours
that it's cooking in the oven so at this
step
it's not that big of a deal so if you
just plop it in and move on
you're fine you're going to be totally
completely fine
next in i like a little bit of heat so
i'm putting in
two scotch bonnet peppers i'm not going
to cut them up i'm just going to leave
them whole in they go
i've got some allspice and i'm just
going to
put it in this mortar and pestle and
give it a little bit of a crush
i'm not going to grind it too fine just
enough to break it up
in that goes i'm going to put in about
four cups of water at this point
just so nothing burns on the bottom of
the pan
now i'm using water all water but you
could use a mix of water in stock you
could use all stock if you wanted to all
vegetable stock if you wanted to
the flavor you're going to get out of
this oxtail is going to give you a
super rich sauce anyway
so adding that extra flavor with a stock
isn't really worth it all that much but
it's really nice if you replace some of
the water with
beer or some of the water with wine that
will give you an extra level of flavor
that you're not getting just with water
but straight up water all on its own
works just fine
next i'm going to put in some soy sauce
about a couple tablespoons
and you don't have to be
over the top with your measuring a
couple tablespoons of soy sauce
and then of course because i'm cooking
meat
in goes the marmite and if you live in a
vegemite country vegemite works just
as well if that's what you want i'm
gonna put that
in this just amps up that beef flavor
and i use it all the time and i know
that there are people out there who are
skeptical of using it
and i read the comments and i've come
across quite a few comments of people
saying
against my better judgment i went and
bought a jar of marmite
and i used it in my stew and it tasted
amazing
so it's really good next up some thyme
and i'm just going to strip the leaves
off and put them in the really
the really fine fine stems
right at the end they're fine just to
put in all on their own you don't have
to chop them up
there you go there you go the last one
put that in
next up
this is our homemade worcester sauce
now i made this in september 2019
and it is now april 2021 and it smells
amazing it is coming into its own
it's not a fully uh brewed
substitute for worcester sauce but it
has all the same elements and it does
the same
thing it really pumps up that beef
flavor
so i'm gonna put in a good dollop
into the pot again building flavors
the last three ingredients the worcester
sauce
the soy sauce and the marmite are all
about
building up that beefy flavor
which really helps you if you've only
got a couple of hours in order to cook
this
i've got a bit of time today so i'm
going to let it really slowly braise
in the oven but if you're pressed for
time these really build flavor
so back in goes the oxtail you'll notice
i'm not putting in
any potatoes or any other root
vegetables i'm going to leave those
out i like to pour this over top
of a mashed potato or a rice or mashed
plantain
something like that okay so lid
on and into the oven
now i've got the oven preheated to 325
degrees fahrenheit i'm going to stick
this in here
and i'm going to let it go for three to
four
hours i will once or twice take the lid
off and give it a stir
check on the amount of liquid and if i
need to add liquid i'll put in a little
bit more water or i might spill in some
beer at that point
see you back here when it's done okay
this has been cooking for about
three and a half hours so i'm gonna pull
it out of the oven and put it back
on the stove top
i'm going to check how thick it is i've
got one more addition
that i want to put in which are some
beans and i'm going to use fresh soy
beans
edamame if you will i'm going to stir
those in
and you could use any kind of bean or
pea that you like but i like these big
beefy soy beans and we also at this
point want to check and see how
thick it is if we want it a little bit
thicker you can just stir
in a little bit of bermanier and i've
used bermane in the past on the show
it is just equal parts of butter and
flour mixed together that's what i've
got here and so
what happens is the um the butter
surrounds the flour
so when you put it into the sauce the
flour doesn't clump up
and you get a real good thickening of
the sauce so i'm going to start out by
putting in maybe a tablespoon
i've got this on a medium heat so it
will come back up to a simmer
i'll simmer it i'll stir it and i'll add
a little bit more bermener if i need to
to thicken it up even farther
but it only takes a couple minutes to
thicken the sauce
this is also a good time
to fish out those hot peppers don't
leave them in the stew
there's one more no one wants a surprise
hot pepper on their plate
there we go two hot peppers
okay so i've got some mashed potatoes
and i'm just going to put taste out for
us
mashed potatoes hey friends hey glenn
oxtail
soup stew okay it goes perfect with
mashed potatoes i can see why they go
together
always soap up all that uh yeah and so
that stewiness
put a little bit of sauce on the side um
some scallion tops just to add a little
bit to it
is it okay if i start with the peanut
the peanut butter the potato right away
you can start with the potato i'm gonna
go in for the oxtail now oxtail is
or can be um
difficult at the table because the bone
is in there still
those flavors are really good
hmm
let me use fantastic there we go the
meat is fantastic
potato in the sauce
yeah not super tasty toss in some more
vegetables and i'm good to go
there's a lot of flavor in the tail um
so this is a low and slow braise
really easy to do once you've got
everything in the pot you just forget
about it for like
four hours that's the best kind you
don't worry about okay which is great
we've got mashed potatoes with it you
can put it with rice you can put it in
noodles
put it with mashed plantains oh yeah i
can see that too mashed plantains would
be fantastic with this
so there's a whole bunch of things you
can do with this and if you wanted to
you put the potatoes
and all of your other root vegetables
into the stew and just have a complete
stew
anything you want yeah thanks for
stopping by see you again soon
you