Oxtail stew

I have never cooked oxtail, so when a pack arrived in a Donald Russell stewing collection that I bought last winter I looked at it suspiciously and put it in the freezer at the bottom. Out of sight, out of mind!

Except that every time I went hunting in the freezer, it was sat there, laughing at me.  And it became more and more obvious as the meat supplies dropped.

Recently I bought another stewing collection so now I had not one but TWO oxtail packs sat in the freezer laughing at me. Clearly something would have to be done.

Then Donald Russell send me the autumn catalogue and in it there was a recipe for braised oxtail. I had a look.  Couldn't be that difficult, surely?

So I fished a pack of ox tail (around 500g) out of the freezer and left it to defrost quietly. (It had stopped laughing by now!).  Yesterday morning I browned the pieces in some sunflower oil then put the pieces in my slow cooker with some chopped onion, some sliced celery tops and some chopped fresh carrots. The recipe called for a can of tomato, but I certainly wasn't going to buy tinned tomatoes when I have a positive mountain of fresh ones waiting to be used. I put in around 20 yellow cherry tomatoes, uncut. I also added two bay leaves, slightly ripped, three garlic cloves, peeled and crushed and a can of Guinness. The liquid did not cover the meat and vegetables completely, but you need less liquid in a slow cooker. I stirred it all around, put the slow cooker onto its medium setting (where it heats up on high and then switches to low) and left it while I went to work.  When I returned I added a little seasoned flour to some of the liquid and made a runny paste, then I put all the contents in an oven proof dish, except for the liquid which I passed through my fat separating jug to remove most of the fat. I stirred the floury paste into the liquid, added it to the dish and popped it all into a 150d oven for about 30 minutes.  We had it with buttery mashed potatoes (not the butter I made at the weekend, alas - we've scoffed that!) and peas from the allotment

And it was extremely delicious. Really, really delicious.

I think, though, with the second pack, I might use ale rather than stout and try it with some paprika as well. I think it would make rather a nice goulash style dish as well as a hearty braise.

And it will be fabulous if we have another really cold winter.

I might need more oxtail pieces!!!