Braised Oxtail 


Here we are again in the "variety meats" section in the Joy of Cooking. Variety meats are all the good stuff: tongue, heart, liver etc. There is so much unexplored territory here it is hard to choose and sometimes find theses interesting meats. This time I went with possibly the most accessible of the variety meats: ox tail. It is pretty much what it sounds like except it is not really from an ox (an ox being a bull that has been castrated) just a regular cow. Ox tail is a very boney piece of meat which is the reason it is so good for slow cooking. The pictures of the bones are at the bottom so if you don't want to see them you don't have to scroll down all the way. There are some important food science concepts dependent on them so I figured they were worth including. I have mentioned this before but I think it is worth saying again, the more a muscle is worked the tougher and more flavourful it gets. So just think of how much a cow moves its tail, therefore ox tail is really tough. Locked away behind all the toughness and connective tissue is lots of big beefy flavour and the only way to unlock it is with slow cooking. There are several types of slow cooking but braising works well for this application since the meat is submerged in liquid it keeps it from drying out. I guess I should define braising and distinguish it from stewing. Braising is usually done to a whole piece of meat submerged in a flavourful liquid, while stewing is small uniformly cut pieces of meat cooked in a flavourful liquid.

I often find that slow cooked meats lack the big flavour I am after. They may be tender but take them out of their sauce and the meat itself is rather bland; this is where ox tail is different. Since some of the pieces are about 50% bone there is a lot of flavour. The flavour comes from the marrow of the bone, the same concept as boiling bones to make a stock. This not only flavours the stock the meat is cooking in but also adds something to the meat itself. Moreover, ox tail contains a good deal of collagen (the protein that makes up connective tissue) which when cooked breaks down into gelatine. The gelatine helps to thicken the liquid and gives the stew incredible body. Body is a hard thing to describe if you don't know what I mean. The best way to describe it is a smooth but substantial mouthfeel.

The recipe itself is very simple if you have a lot of time on your hands for the slow cooking. The meat is browned, submerged in beef stock and put in the oven for 4 hours. Then vegetables are added and the mixture is cooked for another hour. After 5 hours the meat should pull right off the bone. The stock is strained and used to make a gravy and there you have it. Two small notes, this is very rich so the addition of a little bit of acid would be nice and there is a good deal of fat in the stock, take time to skim as much as possible off. Skipping this step will leave your stew somewhat greasy. These points are very minor, I loved this recipe. I had a little trouble finding ox tail. I had seen it at the grocery store before but it is not something that is in stock all the time. I had no luck in to chain grocery stores and had to go to an actual butcher shop.

The moment I know you have all been waiting for: the bones. A cow's tail is tapered from the base of the spine to the end of the and thus ox tail pieces come in different sizes. The three bones below are a sampling of some of the sizes. The two larger pieces are from the base of the spine area and are shaped as you would expect a vertebrae to be. Notice on the ends of the bones there is a little cap. This a spinal disk, the piece of cartilage that separates vertebras. If you have ever slipped a disk that piece is out of whack. As you might have guessed the smallest bone is from closer to the end of the tail. Hopefully you have learned something and are not grossed out. I will say I am no bovine biologist, I did do some research but if you are a bovine biologist please comment on how I did and even if you are not please comment anyways.

Raw Ox Tail