Much a-stew about nothing

Oxtail is the love-it-or-hate-it stew ingredient – but with the correct amount of, well, stewing, it's a delicious winter warmer, writes DOMINI KEMP

WHEN YOU MENTION oxtail, people either smile and go "aghhhhh, I love oxtail" or else or shrink away in disgust and say, "ewwwww, yuck! Rotten stuff". My memories are of a few variations. Tins of thick, tar-like oxtail soup served in school in Ireland, chocolate in colour and saltier than I could bear (which makes me say "Ewwwww, yuck!") and delicious, but unappreciated home-made oxtail stew that my late father insisted we ate once a week. A hearty stew can't be beaten – but the problem was, as children, my sister and I lived in the tropics and eating a hearty stew in sweltering heat and humidity was never very appealing for either our mother (the chef) or his kids. But he was a traditional Scotsman with a penchant for food from his homeland. So oxtail stew, haggis, pig's trotters and kippers were all de rigueur, much to his children's horror. My sister and I grew up watching American TV and were sucked into the world of manufactured, junky, heavily branded, fast foods – which were in stark contrast to what was served at home. A fact I can only be grateful for as an adult.

As a result, my love affair with oxtail stew was a bumpy one and, like a lot of stews, unless it’s cooked really well – and by well I mean slowly and for long enough – it’s a grizzly thing to consume. Stews are usually made with tougher cuts of meat that are subjected to gentle heat over the course of a few hours.

The reason they take so long to cook is because (vegetarians, stop reading, immediately) tougher and cheaper cuts of meat contain more connective tissue, muscle fibre and collagen than, for example, fillet steak, and so need longer periods of time to cook so the meat can transform itself from tough old boots into sticky, fall-off-the bone unctuousness. In other words, no knives should be necessary – just a bowl and fork or spoon.

The other recipe is for a baked barley pilaf (compliments of Simon Hopkinson), which is a pleasant enough vegetarian dish, although I feel it needs a lot of seasoning if you’re going to eat it on its own. If served as the carbohydrate in a meat-and-two-veg dinner, it seems to work much better. I guess barley is a bit like Arborio rice in the sense that it’s blander than bland and needs plenty of seasoning and flavour to have much of an impact.

Oxtail stew

Based on a Skye Gyngell recipe. My butcher had frozen oxtail that had been cut into thick “slices”, about five centimetres thick, and it worked fine. Allow it to defrost overnight in a bowl in the fridge. There is no need for a lot of seasoning in the early stages of this recipe as the end step adds a lot of oomph, flavour-wise.

Serves 4-6

1kg oxtail, cut into thick slices

3 red onions, peeled and sliced

2 tbsp olive oil

Big knob ginger, peeled and chopped

2 red chillies, deseeded and thinly sliced

3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced

1 tbsp Chinese five-spice powder

2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes

1 litre chicken or vegetable stock

50ml fish sauce

50ml soy sauce

3 good tablespoons maple syrup (or honey)

Big bunch coriander

Put the oxtail in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to boil and simmer for 15 minutes, then drain and rinse with cold water. Set aside.

Meanwhile, in a heavy-based saucepan, sautée the onion in the oil until just starting to colour. Add the ginger, chillies, garlic and, finally, the Chinese five-spice powder. Turn up the heat to give it a good blast and mix well. Turn down the heat and add the tomatoes and stock. Mix well, ensuring you don’t have patches starting to burn, and bring up to a simmer.

Gently place the oxtail pieces in the sauce, mix so they are well coated and cook on a very gentle heat for about an hour and a half, with a lid on. Stir and move them about or turn them over every 20 minutes or so, making sure the saucepan isn’t burning and that they are coated and subjected to heat evenly.

If your pan is burning, remove the oxtail pieces into a big dish and pour the sauce over them, but don’t scrape the saucepan. Just let it drip on to it so the burnt stuff remains in the saucepan. Give it a good wash, then put everything back in and keep cooking. You can salvage a stew this way, but it’s best to keep checking and monitoring what’s going on, to avoid this kind of rescue mission.

After 90 minutes, the oxtail should be pretty soft. But add the remaining seasonings (fish sauce, soy and maple syrup) and mix well. Simmer for another 20 minutes or so. Taste and then leave it to rest for about an hour or overnight (this tastes better when it has had a chance to relax for a bit), then re-heat to order.

Baked barley pilaf

From Simon Hopkinson's The Vegetarian Option. Harissa is a North African paste of red chillies and other seasonings and can be found in good delis and supermarkets. Don't fret if you can't find it. Add some sliced, deseeded red chillies or omit it altogether.

Ingredients (Serves 3-4 as a main; 4-6 as a side)

250g pearl barley

1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped

4-5 tbsp olive oil

4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

500ml stock

2 bay leaves

2 tsp harissa

1 aubergine, diced

1 red pepper, deseeded and diced

1 green pepper, deseeded and diced

1 courgette, diced

2 big tomatoes, roughly chopped

Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180 degreees/gas four. Put the pearl barley in a large bowl. Cover with boiling water and l soak for 20 minutes, then drain and rinse well.

In a heavy-based saucepan (for which you have a lid), fry the onion in half the oil. Season well and add the pearl barley and garlic. Mix for a minute or two, then add the stock, bay leaves and harissa. Bring to the boil, then take off the heat.

Fry the aubergine, peppers and courgette in batches in the remaining olive oil – I ended up using more oil as the aubergines absorbed a lot. Regardless, fry in small batches so they fry rather than stew. Season well and, as soon as they have a nice colour, add tothe saucepan with the barley. Then add the tomatoes and mix well.

Cover partially with a lid and bake in the oven for at least 30 minutes. The cooking time might vary and, if you feel it’s too liquidy, remove the lid. Alternatively, add a splash of water if you feel it’s getting too dry.

Once the barley is tender, remove it from the oven and cover with a tea towel and the lid. It will absorb some of the steam while keeping it hot.

Hopkinson advises you “fluff” it with a fork, but mine was quite stodgy, so just give it a stir, taste and make sure you’re happy with the seasoning.

It re-heated just fine the next day too, with a knob of butter and a splash of boiling water to help it on its way.

DOMINI RECOMMENDS:McGeough's air-dried pork is absolutely delicious. If you sometimes find cured Italian hams a bit too gamey, then you will love this. A fantastic product that is well worth buying

See also itsa.ie