At the recent food bloggers conference there were two Le Creuset pots that were giveaways. One went to Colleen for organizing the event, and the other did not go to me! However, I did get a voucher from yuppie chef, and so decided I would get my pot. The first meal cooked in it had to be something special and so I decided to make my award-winning Oxtail. This recipe can be found here, and in Lavender & Lime.
Oxtail
Ingredients
- 500 g oxtail
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to season
- 30 mls tomato purée
- 50 g butter
- 1 onion, peeled and sliced
- 1 leek, sliced
- 3 ribs celery, sliced
- 2 carrots, peeled and grated
- 250 mls red wine
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2.5 mls dried thyme (or 1 stalk fresh thyme)
- 1 stalk parsley
- 1 tin whole tomatoes with the juice
- 1 x tin coke
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180° Celsius.
- In a large oven proof pan, brown the oxtail.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Add the tomato puree and cook for another 2 minutes.
- Remove from the dish and set aside in a bowl.
- In the pan melt the butter and fry the onion, leak and celery until soft.
- Add the carrots and then remove from the pan and add to the oxtail.
- Add the red wine to the pan.
- Add the oxtail and the vegetables and all the juices.
- Add the garlic, thyme, parsley, tin of tomatoes and the coke.
- Place the casserole in the oven for at least 3 hours.
- Adjust the seasoning if necessary.
- Remove from the heat and when cool place in the refrigerator overnight.
- Remove the fat from the top and reheat – make sure there is enough liquid to cover the meat at all times
- Serve with a mix of brown and wild and white rice
Click on the links for conversions and notes.
EDIT
This is one recipe that I need to remake at some stage. Ten years down the line and I am here editing for SEO purposes. I can see that a better photograph is needed to entice readers to make the oxtail. And my recipe needs refining. It will work and you will get a great dish from following it. But it is not perfect. And my way of writing recipes has certainly improved over the past decade. That only happened when I created a template to use. And I made sure to use measuring methods that were not confusing. So, a tin of coke would never appear in a new recipe as it does not say what size tin I used.
It’s a fab dish Tandy. I also use Coke, and an Italian granny taught me to add chopped olives.
I will try the olives next time I make oxtail – always nice to have something different.