Braised Oxtail

Part of my goals for this year was to continue experimenting with uncommon or lesser meats. Oxtail is a cheap meat that isn’t too often used. Gordon Ramsay recommends learning how to perfect oxtail before moving onto expensive cuts – and that’s what he did with his first restaurant. He served delicious dishes full of cheap meats like oxtail. So it’s been on my radar for a while. When we called the butcher and asked him to include all organs and odd bits of meat in our half cow order, we got an oxtail to experiment with.

Yesterday, I finally cooked it.

Never having oxtail before, I wasn’t too sure what to expect. I knew it was full of cartilage and bone and needed a slow cook and was pretty sure it would end up being a super tender, fall off the bone, roast type meat. I was right!

The smell was incredible the entire time – four hours of onions, garlic, red wine, and meat braising in the oven. It was droolworthy. I absolutely couldn’t wait to get it done and try it.

Once the oxtail was done, I made a red wine gravy from the braising liquid (and reserved the rest of the braising liquid for french onion soup I’ll be making tomorrow). It was the absolute best gravy I’ve ever made. So thick and flavorful, I was eating it by the spoonful by itself!

I paired the meat with a creamy polenta and biscuits, which went fabulously together. With the gravy smothering the meat and polenta, it was just perfect. Using the biscuits to clean the rest of the plate, everything went so well together and every bit was eaten.

Even my kids were excited to eat a full dinner of oxtail. Though my daughter still says cow tongue is her favorite food, so that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise!

I’ll absolutely be making this again. It was a cheap meal but it felt elevated and delicious and gave our home such a wonderful smell for the whole day and through the night.