Our next recipe comes from sheer hunger and the continuous urge of a frugal household to use the odds and ends in our kitchen. That’s why we call it…
End All Oxtail Stew
- 1 oxtail
- six cups of water
- carrots
- onions
- garlic
- potaotes
- apples
- rosemary
- savory
- thyme
- green beans
- peanut oil
- red wine
- salt
- pepper
This is a true heart warmer… not to mention a kitchen warmer. From the searing of the tail pieces to the final simmer, this will become a fast favorite the first time you give it a go. In no time, you’ll be chowing down on this, our second, frugal recipe.
We choose peanut oil because of its tolerance of high heats. When it comes to the start of this recipe, high heat is exactly what we are looking for. Just put enough oil in the bottom of your soup pot to coat it evenly without a lot of free standing liquid. Get the oil HOT and your splatter guard at the ready. When the oil is at the sizzle point, drop the tail pieces into the hot oil all at once then cover them with the splatter guard. Next, wield your tongs and turn the now browning pieces to ensure a quick sear on all sides. BE CAREFUL OF THE SPLATTER!!
What you are doing now is sealing off the outside of the meat to make sure it retains its juices rather than slowly loosing them during the cooking resulting in dry meat. Yuck. Also, this intense heat starts to melt the connective tissue under the meat. This will add a ton of flavor to the next step. To ensure a solid sear, don’t turn the meat too often. Simply put it on one side, wait for the browning to occur, turn, wait, turn wait until all sides are browned thoroughly.
The final result of the searing will be a more appetizing appearance and texture to the meat after the braising process. Mushy meat = nasty.
While the meat is searing, throw in two large onions and two heads of garlic. Let them brown up in the meat juices that are caramelizing on the bottom of your soup pot. Here comes the good part. Remove the pot from the heat and start adding red wine to the pan. Begin scraping all of those little brown bits off the bottom of the pot with a spatula or spoon. Keep adding wine a little at a time until you have liberated all of this browned goodness and mingled it with the liquid. What you will have after a few minutes and some elbow grease is the base for your stew. It should be a rich, dark brown-ish red with a sheen on the top.
When you get here, start chucking in all of your potatoes, carrots, green beans and… well… anything else you have laying around the pantry. We used two cored apples in this to add a little sweetness to the savory. Also at this point, put in your fresh or dried herbs. Since we were simmering this for a looong time, we used our dried herbs we’ve been harvesting all summer and saving. For this recipe, we used rosemary, savory and thyme.
Here’s what it looks like at this stage in the game…
You can see the well browned meat as well as the large chunks of veggies and fruits… YUMM!!
Here’s a close up just in case you weren’t hungry enough already! hehehehehe…
Finally, add about six cups of water or whatever your pot will hold. Again, we’ve made a pretty potent mixture up to this point so it will definitely stand up to the water without becoming diluted.
Here you can make one of two choices. These oxtails need to be allowed to cook for a long period of time to soften the connective tissue and make them soft and sweet. Also, the marrow of the bones will add such rich flavor to your stew you don’t want to miss out on any of it. So… either bring this to a boil then reduce to a simmer and let it set for a couple of hours or do what we did…
We are big fans of the pressure cooker so we threw on the lid and let ‘er go for about 45 minutes. We know from your comments on earlier posts, some of you are a little phobic about pressure canning and cooking so the slow method is just fine as well. We just happened to have worked on the garden and been at the market all day and forgot to eat so we were in a little more of a hurry to get to the end product. And, we can honestly say, there is no difference in the resulting product. Flavor, texture, color… all wonderful either way.
So… while that was hissing away on the stove, Jason ran out to grab some more Stone Buhr Flour for his weekly baking and I got creative. As an accompaniment to our End All Oxtail Stew, I decided to make a mash that would hold up to the bold flavors of this rich stew. Improvising with what we had laying around, I came up with this recipe that will now be featured at our Thanksgiving Local Harvest Meal…
Shibaguyz Mish-Mash
- One small Hubbard Squash
- Three medium potatoes (We used Viking Purples)
- Thee cored apples
- One Celeriac
- Milk or Cream
- Butter
- Salt… VERY LITTLE IF ANY!!
Once you try this mash, you will have a hard time going back to the traditional fall mash of the past. And talk about simple!!
Preheat your oven to about 350.
Cut your Hubbard in quarters. Remember, this is one of the little guys. You can see in the picture below the size in perspective with the standard sized baking sheet the quarters are placed on.
Core the apples and leave the skins on
Half up or quarter your potatoes
Peal the celeriac and cut it into chunks
Arrange everything on a baking sheet like so…
Place in your oven to bake for about 30 – 45 minutes. If you time this right, you’ll be able to have the mash finished at exactly the moment your pressure cooker stops hissing and the little valve pops down telling you your creation is ready for consumption!
Using a spoon, remove the Hubbard from the softened skins and throw everything else into a large mixing bowl or your Cuisinart. We recommend the Cuisinart because this stuff is not easy to mash at first. Let the machine do your work. Slowly add butter and milk or cream to the mash. But be careful not to add too much. Let the mash work around and absorb the liquid before adding any more. For this recipe, you’ll want a thicker, more dense mash. If you want a smoother mash, add more liquid. You’ll see why we used tighter mash this time. Now… before adding salt… taste. We didn’t use ANY salt in ours. This was the most flavorful mash we have ever come up with and we felt like it didn’t need anything to make it perfection.
Now, grab the largest soup bowl you can get away with and not look ridiculous… LOL just kidding… go for the HUGE one!!
Ladle in your End All Oxtail Stew then… wait for it… put a big ol’ dab of the Shibaguyz Mish Mash right on top of the stew… thus the need for a big bowl.
The result… TAADAA!!
STOP LICKING YOUR COMPUTER SCREEN!! LOL Yes, it was a good as it looked. The mash went very well in the stew making for the perfect sweet/savory accompaniment to the rich stew. Use your spoon to get a little of the mash and a little of the stew and go to town. You will NOT be sorry you tried this.
Plus… how easy was that?? This is going to be a staple here in our house for the winter. Eiko from Skagit River Ranch thinks it’s funny that we will eat these cuts of meat that only she and her family will eat. She can’t give this stuff away to other people. That’s fine with us… although… now that the secret is out… hhhmmmm… oh well… plenty of oxtail to go around!!
Try it, enjoy it, and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear variations on this as well. Thanks for coming back for another in our series of Cookin’ With The Shibaguyz! And yes, Mom (Jason’s Mom), we think a cookbook would be a good idea too… we’re working on it… hehehehe…
talk to you soon…
The Shibaguyz
looks delicious! When I saw the title of your post, I thought it was going to be a protest against oxtail stew!
You are so good, it is mouthwatering just to look at the pictures and then when I read your recipes… the way you prepare the food…hm I just love it. I have tasted Oxtail soup twice, both in hotel restaurants and I’m sure they were made from a Cambells tin, really bad stuff./ Tyra xoxo
You crazy carnivores… I’m going to have to try the MishMash, I have squash phobia and have vowed to overcome it this winter. Yes to a cookbook!
That looks really good. One thing, though…Alton Brown has already proven that searing does nothing to retain juices.
Does wonders for flavor, though.
All I want to know is when is dinner? This sounds so yummy!!!!
Jen
That does sound good. Remind me to post my beef noodle soup recipe. It is cheap to make and extra yummy.
garden girl – good grief… you’re right!! LOL We were making a pun on using odds and ends and… well… oxTAIL… the end… Funny how two people can see the same thing and see two totally different things. LOL
Tyra in Vaxholm – So glad you like our recipes. We really do try to write just as we would talk to someone in our own kitchen who we were teaching to make our food. We’re very happy to see it comes across that way.
Karen – How about loco-localvores? Or omnifarious omnivores?? hehehehe… We LOVE to prepare squash in all sorts of yummy forms. They are soooo easy to prepare and versatile. We’ll see what we can do about digging up some of our favorite recipes for you. Oh… and we’ll add your voice to Mom Bowlsby’s vote for a cookbook.
CarolAnn – Although we are fans of Alton Brown, we do have to disagree with him on this as the same preparation for this dish without the searing did not produce the same meat consistency. Guess we’ll just have to experiment with it more! WOOHOO!! LOL
Muddy Boot Dreams – I KNOW!! You should be here when we’re cooking it… it can be torture waiting! LOL Luckily, Jason always has some yummy fresh bread setting around for us to munch on.
Aunt Debbi – Go for it! We’ll look forward to it. We usually make ours as the second day to a beef roast in the crock pot. Can’t wait to see your variation to see if there’s anything we can steal… um… borrow. LOL