Oxtail stew recipe | Jamie Oliver soup and stew recipes (2024)

FAQs

What makes stew more flavorful? ›

Add spices such as turmeric, coriander and cumin at the early stage of cooking, when you are frying onions and garlic, to enhance the taste of the beef stew. Fresh herbs like coriander and bay leaves also contribute a distinct flavour without making the dish too spicy for the younger members of the family.

Alternate way to thicken stew gravy: Remove the oxtails/vegetables, leaving the liquid in the pot. Make a cornstarch slurry in a small bowl (1 tablespoon cornstarch + 1 tablespoon water, mixed until combined). Stir mixture into stew liquid and simmer until gravy thickens, about 5 minutes.

Fill with enough water to cover oxtails and place over high heat. Bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to medium. Cook oxtails until tender, 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

But the liquid itself should not be thick in the same way that gravy is thick. So skip the roux, and don't bother dusting the meat with flour or cornstarch before browning, either, as some recipes will suggest. That will just interfere with getting a good sear on the meat, and gum up the stew with unneeded starch.

For most types of stew, it takes time to develop great flavor. Stew uses collagen-rich, tough cuts of meat, which need at least two hours to break down. If you try to rush it and boil the stew, the muscle fibers will shrink and become tough. So give yourself a few hours to let it do its thing.

Put the meat in the oil and sear each side for a couple of minutes. Browning your oxtails will not cook the meat. Instead, it will enhance its color and aroma by caramelizing its exterior. Browning beef oxtails in a hot skillet before braising will also add rich depth and flavor to the meat.

There is a good amount of fat and collagen that melt into your dishes as oxtail cooks, which will give a wonderful round texture to sauces and that slightly sticky feel to the meat. And the bonus flavor from the bone marrow that will cook into your dishes make this cut one to really get to know and not be afraid of!

By soaking and blanching the oxtail before cooking any impurities are removed. To cook: Oxtail requires long, slow cooking to produce tender, succulent meat.

While it's not absolutely necessary to brown the oxtails before stewing them, it is highly recommended. Browning meat results in caramelization which greatly enhances the flavor of the finished stew.

As the meat braises, the collagen inside the cut cooks down and becomes gelatin; as it dissolves, the meat's fibers relax and tenderize. However, if the cooking temperature is too high, these muscle fibers will shrink and seize up, toughening.

Do you have to cut fat off oxtail before cooking? ›

Much like the other cooking methods, you want to trim off any excess fat, brown the outside, and deglaze any leftover bits from the browning process. This time, use wine to deglaze the pan and sauté onions, celery, carrots, and garlic.

Braised Oxtails Soul Food

Combining braised oxtails with carrots, parsnips, and turnips makes for delicious soul food. Serve this recipe with rice or with mashed potatoes.

Packed with protein, minerals, and vitamins, oxtail is healthy and nutritious. However, its nutritional crowning jewel is none other than its high collagen content which brings oxtail into the realm of the superfood.

The best choices for what to serve with oxtails include jasmine and basmati rice, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, dumplings, steamed greens, roasted veggies, crisp garden salad, crusty bread, cornbread, stewed beans, and chickpea salad.

There are flavors in tomatoes that are alcohol-soluble, so adding red wine along with tomato paste also helps to enhance beef stew." Laurence has a few other tricks I've borrowed to create the best beef stew, including adding Worcestershire, which gets a serious umami punch from anchovies.

Personally I would add as many aromatics and flavor enhancing substances that I like. If the stew is already finished, then you can sauté onions, garlic peppers, celery and carrots then add them to the stew. I would also add some herbs and finally salt and pepper to taste.

Things like cinnamon, turmeric, curry powders, fresh ground peppercorns, sage, tarragon and dill can all pick up where you left the salt out. Allow yourself some discovery. Without the added sodium, herbs and spices can offer a different depth of flavor especially if you grind them up yourself.