Oxtail Braised in Red Wine

Beefy, flavourful, and off-the-bone tender oxtail braised in red wine, with crunchy carrots and pearl onions. We show you a step-by-step guide on slow-braising meat.

This was one of the very first dishes I cooked following a recipe. When I first started trying to cook, I always felt really badass adding red wine to my cooking, probably because I was way too young to be allowed a glass. That was as close as it got to drinking wine.

I still remember tasting the first attempt. The oxtail had a very strange acidity to it. It turned out I never gave the alcohol enough time to evaporate before adding more cooking liquid. Because of how alcohol evaporates (there are many wonderful articles/papers on this topic), once you add the cooking liquid, you will not be able to meaningfully evaporate more. It was a lesson I would never forget.

I also thought it would be interesting to introduce an alternative way to stove-top braising - cooking the whole cast iron pot in the oven. This is a method I first tried when I was obsessed with cooking bolognese. The oven gives the surface of the pot a lot more browning, which introduces much deeper flavours.

There are two downsides to this method though. 1) You have to attend to it quite regularly to even out the browning by mixing. 2) Your kitchen will smell like oxtail. The latter is only a problem if you have an open-plan kitchen like mine. Smelling your wonderful cooking for three long hours will remove quite a bit of your appetite.

You can achieve a very good result cooking the whole thing on the stove with the lid on. That way, you can forget about it and come back in three hours.

0:00 - Intro
0:29 - Searing the Oxtail
1:15 - Preparing the Aromatic Vegetables
2:08 - Finishing Browning the Oxtail
2:47 - Sweating the Aromatic Vegetables
3:19 - Tomato Puree
3:32 - Reducing the Red Wine
4:24 - Chicken Stock & Bay Leaves
5:25 - 2 Cooking Options
5:45 - Finishing the Oxtail Stew
8:15 - Garnish

*Ingredients*
Oxtail - about 1 kg
Carrots - 3 unpeeled and cut into chunks, 3 peeled and cut into bite-size
Celery - about 2 sticks, cut into chunks
Onion - 1 large, cut into chunks
Garlic - 3 cloves
Pearl onions (optional) - peeled
Tomato puree - about 200 ml
Bay leaves - about 3
(Cheap) dry red wine - 750 ml
Chicken stock (homemade or store-bought) - about 750 ml
Salt
Black pepper
Vegetable oil
Parsley - thinly sliced

*Directions*
1. Preheat the oven to 150°C (302°F) fan.
2. Heat the cast iron pot on medium-high heat (induction 7.5) and add vegetable oil. Season the oxtail with salt and black pepper. Once the oil starts to shimmer, add the oxtail pieces. Make sure they form one layer. Do not crowd the pan. Brown them in batches if necessary.
3. Once the oxtail pieces are browned on all sides, remove them from the pot and add the unpeeled carrots, celery, onion, and garlic. Cook until the vegetables are slightly browned.
4. Add tomato puree and stir to mix. Cook for about another minute.
5. Add red wine and cook to evaporate the alcohol. You should aim to reduce the wine by about half. This should take at least 5 minutes.
6. Add oxtail back to the pot and add just enough chicken stock to cover most of the ingredients. Bring the pot back to a simmer.
7. Add bay leaves and whatever herb you desire.
8. Add the pot to the preheated oven and cook for about 3 hours. Stir to even out the browning every half an hour.
9. After three hours, remove all the aromatic vegetables and the herbs. Skim off most of the fat. The dish can be served at this stage if desired.
10. Add carrots and pearl onion to the pot and cover with a lid. Cook for another 30 minutes on the stove at medium-low heat (induction 4.5).
11. Serve and garnish with thinly sliced parsley.

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#W2Kitchen #oxtails #oxtailrecipe

[foodatasty]

so great cooking! i only used to eat oxtail soup, never eat like this before. so wanna try it.

[lourdesrubang]

I found your oxtsil recipe so delicious, i have to look for this recipe, i will cook fir visitirs for dinner❤

[LunaWolf]

I grew up with Oxtail soup, I learned to cook it from my British Mother and I have often wondered if there was another way to cook it as I have been eating it the same way for 50 years so I am looking forward to cooking this recipe next winter. Thank you and may I also say you have a wonderful laugh and are a pleasure to learn from.

[nikopipo]

Looks great. Awesome video quality btw.

[chubby_deity]

Just a thought, when you talked about the bay leaves, how some other herbs don't do well with long cook times, but would it do anything for the dish if you add other herbs to the pot after the sieving, when you put the pot thru the "second cooking"?

[jcqrdw]

Your 'Tomato puree' is this the concentrate?
In Australia we call the concentrate tomato paste. While tomato puree is quite watery unlike what your video is showing.

[ConstanceLui]

the fact that you're wearing a white shirt for this gives me anxiety