Oxtail Summer Stew: must eat it with your fingers!

Oxtail Summer Stew: must eat it with your fingers!

Image from: Dictionnaire Universel de Cuisine et d’Hygiène Alimentaire
—Joseph Favre  1894—


In the the late 19th century French nomenclature for beef cut classification
(see picture above), beef tail ranked as PREMIÈRE CATÉGORIE (first category) — for the top of the tail— &  CINQUIÈME CATÉGORIE (fifth category) for the rest of it, which makes sense as the top of the tail is meatier than the  end.  Ox tail dishes can still be found on the menu of ethnic restaurants: Cuban, Chinese, Korean, but not so often in main stream place. To buy them your best choice will be  a supermarket with  any of the ethnic presences cited above, though personally I avoid any “industrial” meat and stick with grass fed. Yes, it is more expensive, but I rather eat less & avoid the hormones, antibiotics, and lousy treatment of the animal.

oxtail"

So I was thrilled to find some beautiful grass feed oxtail cuts at the Park Slope Food Coop,  not only because I love it, but also because it is cheaper than any other cut: $4.63lb. The farm provenance: McDonald Farm in the Finger lakes Region of Upstate NY.  I knew exactly how I was going to  cook them because I surveyed the fridge before going shopping & noticed that a few veggies required immediate use.  So below is my recipe with what was left over in the fridge and would make the dish great.

oxtail"

The only imperatives are:
1- Very long slow cooking
( 6/7 hours minimum)
2- Once fully cooked let the dish rest and eat it the next day, reheated.
3- Eat the tail bones with your fingers, other wise you will be missing all the best parts!

Recipe:
for 2 with a little left over:
2
lbs 1/2 of oxtail
1 onions
3 red pepper
1 green pepper

oxtail"1 zucchini
2 celery rib
3 cloves of garlic
1 cup of small porcini mushrooms
1 ripe seeded tomato
—all of the above chopped fine—
1/2 cup of Shitake tails
1 cup of white wine
1 cup of red wine
Salt & lots of freshly ground pepper

Warm 2 tablespoon of duck fat, back fat or olive oil in a skillet; when it is hot, brown the  pieces of tails thoroughly.
Set aside, keep the fat in the pan and sauté the onions, once melted add the red & green pepper, zucchini and celery. Sauté and let sweat for a few minutes. Then add the mushrooms, let them sweat a little ,then add the tomato and the garlic. Mix well, add the tail bones, mix well again, add wine, salt & pepper ,mix. Once the liquid boils, turn it down to a low flame and let simmer for 5/6 hours or more.
You know the meat is perfect when it comes undone easily and falls off the bone. If you can let is rest over night and eat it the next day it will taste even better. Look at Pierre above licking his fingers before he said: “This is absolutely delicious, and you can quote me!”



Chinatown I : Zongzi

Chinatown I : Zongzi

I find food wrapped in leaves very appealing and it is interesting to note that we can find them in many cultures around the globe. It seems they all have one thing in common: the rather blend starch hides something in smaller quantity ans most of the time a good surprise.
A few weeks ago while walking through Chinatown I walked by a lady selling something that looked similar to what I remembered having few years back also in New York Chinatown.
I tried to ask her what was it was. She spoke to me only in Chenise and nedeless to say I couldn’t understand, but buying one of the wrapped leave package from her small portable makeshift stand for $1.25 was possible. I couldn’t wait to eat it but I decided to wait to go home and try to identify it.

The internet investigation revealed that it appeared that I had purchased A Zongzi. They are mostly made for the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival that takes place every year the 5th day of the 5th moon. This year it was June 8th. Mine was wrapped in bamboo leaves and filled with peanuts & pork and but they come with different fillings.

I printed out the name and returned to Chinatown on Wednesday to see if I could confirm my identification. The old lady wasn’t there but a sidewalk cart stand had a pile of them. I showed the lady the print out, –see image of print out above– and she nodded positively

Then she tried to explain something about the position of the threads in chinese, a man came to my rescue and translated that: one one thread at the bottom indicated that it was a peanut zongzi and the other a bean paste zongzi. I got one of each.

At first the sticky rice tasted a little blend and gooey but when you I hit the peanuts and then pork it all comes together. The pork meat tasted very similar to pork confit we make in the South of France. I much prefer the one with peanut than the one with the yellow bean paste. Also I must say that the one purchased at the cart on Wednesday were really mediocre compared to the one I got from the old lady. I had gotten only a peanut one from the old lady and it was delicious, the pork was moist and perfectly salty and what appeared way to much rice and very little meat, dotted with still crunchy boiled peanuts was PERFECT. I also found out they are also called zong in some parts of China.

More on Chinatown soon!