The dumplings that keep on giving

Flushed with the success of my couple of attempts to use pieces of oxtail from the Donald Russell stewing boxes, I ran wild the last time I was in the Chatsworth farm shop and bought a whole oxtail (happily divvied up into pieces)

I put them in my slow cooker with some onions and tomatoes and white wine and garlic and herbs and left it all to simmer while I was at work. Once it was cooled, I took out the oxtail pieces then put the juices and vegetables into the blender and then passed them through a fine sieve to create a sauce. I put it in the fridge, and the following morning I took the fat from the top. I also stripped the meat from the bones and put it in a bowl in the fridge.  We had some of the sauce as a soup for lunch.

That evening I put the meat and the rest of the sauce in a casserole and decided to make a savoury cobbler with it.  So I made some herby dumplings and formed cobbles and put them on top of the stew.  I took the left over cobbles and put them on top of the other cobbles and put it all into a moderate oven for about an hour.

When I came back, the cobbles had risen and risen and risen and RISEN. The cobbles had also sucked the juices pretty much entirely from the stews.  What I now had was a thick, gravy infused suet pastry over my stewed and succulent meat strips!!!!!

I made some gravy with the water the potatoes had been cooked in and we had the dumplings and the meat with mashed potato, veggies and gravy.  I put the mountain of left over meat and pastry in the fridge while I thought about it.

The next day we had pork chops while I thought some more :-D

The following day I took some of the meat and rejuvenated it with a tomato gravy and put it in a casserole with a lid.  I put some of the pastry over the top and  heated it slowly in a low oven. We had that with boiled potatoes and buttered cabbage. The day after that I took the meat, the pastry (now reformed into dumplings) and added peas, beans, baked beans, cabbage and gravy, then crumbled a healthy handful of stilton into it all and simmered it on the stove top.  It turned into a truly delicious, glutinous, thick stew. There was a little left over and we have that with a few extra vegetables added with weiner schnitzels and chips.

Apart from the day we had the pork chops while I thought about things, that oxtail and its accompanying dumplings/cobbles/pastry fed us all week, and gave us a couple of lunches as well.  It was extremely good value for the £8 I spent on the tail.  I must buy another one (although I'll try and be a little less heavy handed with the dumplings next time!!!)