Stewed Oxtail in Red Wine

Do NOT underestimate the incredible tastiness of ox tail. You would think that, like the tongue or hoof, ox tail would be categorized in that "unusable" category of really cheap cuts of meat. However, given that the entire Asian culture considers the tail a delicacy, ox tails are in short supply and the cost has risen considerably in recent years. We found a nearby butcher who sold them, and my husband was dying for me to make ox tail stew again. But I wanted to try something different, and so found a recipe online and made it a little more my own. It takes a long time to cook, but dear god is it ever worth it.

Ingredients:

About 2 to 2 1/2 pounds ox tails
1/2 large onion, cut into large chunks
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into chunks
1 celery stalk, cut into chunks
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 cup plain flour
2 Tbsp tomato paste
a little less than 1 cup of red wine (200mL)
1 can beef broth
1 bay leaf
2 Tbsp butter
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp kosher or sea salt

If the oxtail isn't already cut into sections (splitting the vertebrae), do so now. Rinse meat under water. Dump flour onto a plate and heat the butter up in a large, deep skillet. When butter is melted, drop the oxtails into the pan and brown on all sides (takes 10-15 minutes). Set aside.

In the same pan (add a little more butter if you wish), sauté onion, carrot, celery and garlic for 10 minutes. Pour in red wine, tomato paste, bay leaf and beef stock; cook and mix until it comes to a boil.

Toss in ox tails, turning over once to coat in sauce, then cover the pan and cook over low heat for 2 1/2-3 hours. Remove bay leaf and add salt and pepper and mix well. Serve with/over mashed potatoes.
Feeds 4 people, very rich broth.

Hearty Fish Chowder

Finally, I have something to cook! I seriously spent all of $5 on this recipe, so as long as you have a few staple foods at home you can make it just as easily as I did. It just takes about 45 minutes overall to put together and cook. Sorry I haven't added anything until now; I've been surviving on dishes that I've already blogged about. This idea came to me after I bought a package of Tilapia at a regular (not even Super) Wal-Mart, as a last-ditch effort at eating something healthy before I could afford to go buy groceries this week.

Ingredients:

3 frozen or thawed Tilapia fillets
5 red potatoes, washed and cubed
2 carrots, chopped
1/2 sweet onion, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, diced
1 cup frozen corn (you can add more if you like, this is just what I used in this particular recipe)
1 can Cream of Celery soup
1 Tbsp rosemary
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp basil

Put all the chopped vegetables (potato, onion, garlic and carrots) into a large pot and just cover with water. Bring to a boil, then simmer until potatoes are almost fork-tender.

Add all other ingredients, covering the pot with the lid tipped to let out a little steam. Simmer on low for about 15 minutes, until fish is cooked and soup is well-mixed into the broth. The fish will break apart and distribute itself nicely into the soup, as long as you mix it well a couple of times as it's cooking.

This is my bowl of hot fish soup served with a buttered slice of my artisan bread. Yum! I estimate this batch of soup will make about 8 servings.

Beef Stew in the Crock Pot Plus a Special Ingredient

The baby is much better behaved in the mornings, so that's why it's much easier to make Crock Pot meals. I start it in the morning when she is content to sit in her chair and watch me, and can get everything prepared with little fuss over her. Today is another "clean out the cabinets" type stew, since tomorrow I'll finally have money to go grocery shopping again. I had a shallot in the cupboard so I decided to add that to my normal recipe for beef stew, found HERE. Shallots really suck to peel and cut, as they make you cry worse than regular onions, but they taste absolutely fabulous once cooked. Plus I had a few extra potatoes, and since I didn't want to have just two or three red potatoes sitting lonely in the cupboard I threw them all in.

It's a starch-heavy beef stew today. And I'm glad I always keep bouillon cubes in the cabinet. A can of beef broth tastes better, but when you either forget to buy one or simply run out, some bouillon cubes will do the trick.

The addition of the shallot turned out to be an incredible bonus, adding a sweet tang to the broth. I think I'll be putting a chopped shallot or two in my beef stew from now on!

Oxtail Stew

The last two nights were filled with leftovers and cheater meals, like McCormick spice mix chicken wings. But today I am finally trying something new, which means I need to follow a recipe. Actually, I'm combining two recipes I found for Oxtail Soup/Stew; one from Stephanie O-Dea's Make it Fast, Cook it Slow, and the other from Vol. 14, #3 of Renaissance Magazine, along with a few additions of my own.
My husband went on leave Friday afternoon and will be home for two whole weeks! So he watched the baby this morning while I got an early start on this recipe, which will take two days.
I thought it would be pretty cheap to prepare, assuming ox tails were a beef part about as desirable as tongue or hock, but I was wrong. I got 2 1/3 pounds of ox tails at just over $10, given them being $4 something per pound! Both the recipes I had called for 3 pounds of ox tails, but I'm a cheapskate so I altered the recipes to approximate the amount of meat I actually had available. I'm using my 7 quart Crock Pot (the lid on which broke yesterday and is now being held together by super glue until I buy a new crock pot today).

Ingredients:

2-3 pounds ox tails
1 pound (or about 7) carrots, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
5-6 small red potatoes, cut into inch chunks
1 1/2 stalks celery, sliced down the middle then chopped
12 oz. worth of canned diced tomatoes
1 cup dry white wine (like Chardonnay)
1 can low sodium beef broth
2-3 Tbsp olive oil
3 green onions or 2 leeks, chopped into rings (leaving out the last inch or two of dark green)
3 fat garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning (or, barring that, a few shakes worth to cover the meat of parsley, rubbed sage, basil, and oregano)
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cumin (I only had cumin seed so I ground the 1/2 tsp up with my mortar and pestle)
3 sprigs rosemary
a sprig of fresh oregano, if you have it
sea salt
black pepper

Pour the olive oil into the bottom of the Crock Pot and rub it around with your fingers to cover the bottom. Rinse off the ox tails then plop them in on top of the olive oil. Cover with all the ground spices and 2 of the sprigs of rosemary, as well as a few shakes of sea salt and pepper. Pour in the beef broth, wine, and spread the tomatoes on top of all that. Add the vegetables and top with a few more shakes of sea salt and pepper. Break up the last sprig of rosemary and pull the leaves off the fresh oregano and scatter over the top.
Cover and cook on high for 5 hours, then turn off and let cool. Put the crock pot (just the ceramic part) into the refrigerator overnight to let the fat congeal and rise to the surface. In the morning, scrape off the fat (and throw out), then put the pot back into the heating element and cook on low for 6-8 hours to reheat and allow the flavors to mesh and the meat to get nice and tender.

Second Day: Skim the fat off the top, trying to get around the vegetables as best you can, then start it up again on low.
End result: Bloody delicious! The meat was falling off the bone...yum!