Sorry to say I have been a little on the quiet side of late so as a peace offering I’m going to give you my prized Oxtail Recipe which, if you like Oxtail, is delicious and absolutely perfect for all of this cold weather we’ve been experiencing in Durban this last week. I think we can safely say ‘Winter is here’. What’s even better is how simple this dish is!
Ingredients
- 2x packs oxtail (roughly a kg, but all packs in Durban are about the same size)
- 1x tablespoon crushed garlic
- 1x bottle red wine, either a Pinotage or Merlot
- 2x large carrots, cut into 2cm chunks
- 2x onions, cut into quarters
- Bistow powder or similar gravy powder
Method
- Trim off the excess fat and brown the oxtail in a little olive oil – You may need to do this in batches depending on how much oxtail you are making.
- Once all of the oxtail has been browned, put it all back into the pot and add the garlic. Cook for a further minute or until the garlic becomes fragrant.
- Then add the wine, carrots and onions making sure everything is covered with liquid, if not you can add more red wine or water – personally I add more wine, of course!
- Turn the heat down so the oxtail is just simmering gently and leave for a few hours – the longer it cooks the more tender it becomes it just depends how tender you want it to be, I normally leave it for 3 to 4 hours, but then I like my meat falling off the bone.
- Once ready add some Bistow powder until you achieve the thickness you’re looking for – Tip: take some liquid from the oxtail and put it in a cup, add the gravy powder to the liquid in the cup, dissolve it and then add the liquid back to the oxtail so you don’t get those horrible powder lumps floating around your oxtail which become dusty explosions in your mouth and very unpleasant.
- Sometimes a layer of fat forms across the top of your oxtail, I normally skim this off using a little espresso cup.
Voila, how simple can you get. Incase you want to double up the recipe for larger crowds, which will happen quickly, once your friends have tried this one they will all be back for more – I use one bottle of wine per two packs (1Kg) of oxtail.
If you want to know if the quality of the wine affects the oxtail I can confidently say yes, it does! The better the wine the better the Oxtail, as I learnt when one day I randomly grabbed two bottles of red wine from our wine rack and decanted them into an oxtail I was making. That evening, at dinner time, Tyler (my partner) went to get the expensive red wine he had been saving – probably for a week, which actually, is quite a long time for a bottle of wine to be sitting dormant in our house. To his horror the red wine he wanted was gone and while racking his brain as to what he had done with the wine his eyes settled on the bubbling oxtail and then slowly shifted over to me, the blissfully proud homemaker preparing to serve her dinner and completely unaware of the ah ha moment emerging in his mind. Breaking my bliss he said, “Demi, which bottles of wine did you use in the oxtail?”, shrug, “just two from the rack” and I casually sauntered over to the scullery and showed him the bottles, yes, they were the same bottles he was looking for! It turns out that I had blissfully poured R500 worth of red wine into our oxtail. On the flip-side, it was really good oxtail! A hard lesson learnt, I have also learnt that you can use R20 bottles of wine and still get great results so it’s entirely up to you, but maybe check with your partner before you blissfully pour it into the oxtail or you may end up with a sulking partner for a few hours. Just saying!
The best compliment to the Oxtail has got to be Garlic Mash. I haven’t given measurements because this one for us is done using all the senses and lots of love, so just go for it!
Ingredients
- Potatoes
- Butter
- Milk
- Garlic
Method
- Boil the potatoes until soft and cooked
- In a saucepan melt some butter
- Once melted add the garlic and cook gently, you just want to infuse the garlic flavor into the butter
- Add the garlic butter the potatoes and mash
- Add as much milk as you feel is needed to get the right consistency you enjoy – personally my children and partner love their mash to be quite creamy and light so we really mash our potatoes. No lumps or bumps for us.
I hope you enjoy this meal, it really is one of my favorites and that of my children and friends. My six year old (who is a little girl) methodically strips each bone until there is nothing left and then finishes it off by sucking out the juices from all of the little holes. I think I can confidently say, she’ll never be a vegetarian!
Durban Dining 