Tale of the Ox

When I bought the Beef cookbook a few weeks ago, one of the recipes that caught my interest was for oxtail. I've never cooked or eaten oxtail before and it looked delicious in the picture. So when the Highbury Butcher had some oxtail a few Saturdays ago, I decided to buy it and give it a try. Of course, when I went to cook the recipe, you also needed a pig trotter. Besides having no idea how I could get a pig's trotter at short notice, I'm not even sure one would fit in my saucepan! So that recipe was canned and I spent quite a bit of time searching the internet for an oxtail recipe for a disorganised person - i.e. I wanted to eat and cook it on one day and had limited access to exotic ingredients. I finally found this recipe for Oxtail stew cooked in red wine, which met the criteria.

The oxtail was pretty disturbing looking - I mean, it really looked like bits of chopped up tail!


Although it was helped by some cooking. The recipe was really easy, the kind where you chuck everything in a pot and come back a couple of hours later.


We served it with parsnip and potato mash and it was really delicious. A good beefy flavour, but the kind of meat that just falls apart. I would definitely cook this again.


We also got to enjoy it again the next day as a pasta sauce, so it is a dish that keeps on giving!