Jennifer McLagan's Aromatic Chinese Oxtail Stew

So, after finishing Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and feeling much like what I imagine our parents felt like after reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962, I vowed to myself never to buy industrial beef again. Oh sure, I'd already given up on supermarket eggs and chicken a long time ago, but now I've added meat to the list. Or rather, from now on I'll only be shopping for chicken, meat and eggs at the Greenmarket.

A lofty, unrealistic goal? Yeah, quite possibly. Who knows how sustainable these kinds of ideals are? And yet, I just don't know how to continue to justify buying meat and eggs from a place that doesn't care how those animals were raised or slaughtered and, more importantly, doesn't care about the effects that food has upon me, my family, my friends, and my fellow citizens. If you don't know what I'm going on about, seriously, buy yourself a copy of Pollan's book. It's so endlessly fascinating, rich with information and stories, and hugely important in its message. It's irreverent and funny, heartbreaking and infuriating to boot.

The point of the book is not just to talk about how we eat and why, but also about how we buy, how we're talked to and looked down upon by the industries that purport to nourish us, and how we can change the way we see our kitchen, the dinner table, grocery store and the people we rely upon to feed us. Forgive me if I'm proselytizing, but I'm feeling transformed.

The point of all this? To tell you that after finishing the book (and realizing I had friends coming over for dinner a few days later), I thought I should put my money where my mouth was. So I went to the greenmarket and bought what felt like the world's most expensive oxtail from John Gigliardi's Grass-Fed Beef. The recipe I wanted to make came from a piece in the New York Times last year about cooking with animal bones and called for five to six pounds of oxtail. If I had bought that amount from Gigliardi, it would have cost me $37. So, I asked for a little under four pounds, and figured I'd fudge the recipe a bit. The meat still cost $25.

Which makes me wonder - do grass-fed beef producers have to charge such high prices to actually make a profit? Or is it my mistake to think that oxtail, historically among the cheapest cuts, hasn't increased in price due to its "reverse snob appeal"? You tell me.

After a day of defrosting in my refrigerator, the oxtail were ready to go. First I browned them in batches, which always takes longer than I expect. When each piece was crusty and well-browned, I removed them to a plate, poured off the fat and poured in the Shaoxing wine to deglaze the pot. Then I added soy sauce and the aromatics and brought the mixture to a boil. The oxtail went back into the pot, as did some pieces of orange peel, and the whole thing went, covered, into the oven for three hours.

It takes a large amount of discipline not to eat dinner right at the moment that the kitchen timer buzzes, because your house will smell of all kinds of good things - browned and braising meat, savory sauces, fragrant fruity and spicy flavors. Good luck with your willpower. I removed the quivering oxtail to a baking pan and strain the dark sauce into a pan, before covering both and stashing them in the fridge. The next day, I warn you, you might be slightly disgusted at the task of scraping off the quarter-inch thick layer of fat on the sauce, but the heavenly smell will motivate you to keep going.

I liquefied the jellied sauce over a low flame, poured it over the chilled oxtail and put the baking dish back in the oven for another hour. In this time, the sauce thickened and the oxtail edges crisped while the interior meat became meltingly soft. We ate our oxtail stew over plain white rice, which soaked up the deliciously aromatic sauce. I didn't actually halve the sauce ingredients despite the fact that I used less meat - and it seemed to work out just fine. And the amount for four people was more than enough - I even had leftovers the next day.

This is humble food, but the exotic flavors give it a sheen of sophistication (not to mention a sense of accomplishment that the sauce tasted as good as something I've had in a Chinese restaurant - a good one!). Was the grass-fed beef so much better than the industrial kind? To be honest, it's kind of beside the point. This beef tasted delicious, cooked up perfectly and made me feel good on a couple different levels. So what if it cost more? I don't eat meat all that often anyway. Who knows, maybe this idea of eating as sustainably as possible isn't something I can afford in the long run, but I'm going to try. And maybe, just maybe, we're around the corner from a food revolution in this country and soon everyone will feel like I do. Wouldn't that be nice?

Aromatic Chinese Oxtail Stew
Serves 6

5 to 6 pounds oxtails, cut into pieces, fat trimmed
Kosher salt and ground black pepper
2 to 4 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ cup Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry
1/3 cup dark or regular soy sauce
1½ tablespoons brown sugar
1 star anise, broken into pieces
3 scallions, trimmed and cut into 2-inch lengths, plus 2 scallions, thinly sliced on the diagonal, for garnish
6 slices fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 orange, 4 large strips of zest removed with a vegetable peeler and reserved
Cooked rice, for serving

1. Heat oven to 300 degrees. Season oxtails with salt and pepper. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large ovenproof pot with a tight-fitting lid. Working in batches if necessary to avoid crowding, brown oxtail all over, removing each piece when done. Add oil as needed.

2. When done browning, pour off extra fat from bottom of empty pot and set pot over high heat. Add wine and bring to a boil, scraping up browned bits. In a bowl, mix soy sauce and sugar with 2 cups water and pour into pot. Add star anise, 2-inch pieces of scallions, ginger and garlic and bring to a boil. Turn off heat. Return oxtails to pot and add orange zest. Cover and transfer to oven. Cook 1½ hours.

3. Turn over pieces of oxtail, cover again and cook 1½ hours more, or until oxtail is very tender. Transfer oxtail pieces to a baking dish. Strain sauce into a separate saucepan; discard contents of strainer. Cover oxtails and sauce and refrigerate overnight.

4. The next day, heat oven to 300 degrees; remove oxtails and sauce from refrigerator. Lift off any fat on surface of sauce and discard. Gently warm sauce until liquid, then pour over oxtails. Cover with foil or a lid and bake 30 minutes.

5. Uncover, stir and raise oven temperature to 400 degrees. Cook, uncovered, 15 minutes. Stir again and cook another 15 minutes, until hot and glazed thickly with sauce. Meanwhile, squeeze ¼ cup juice from orange. Remove oxtails from oven, stir in orange juice, and serve in bowls over rice. Sprinkle each serving with thin scallion slices.

Comments

[Tanna]

Is it so radical to think that we should pay for what we get? Maybe the cost would go down some if this was the only way meat was available.
I don't know what to say about what you've writen on tasting this dish. I have the feeling this is long cooking that produces heaven in the air and on your tongue. Marvelous!

[gemma]

If you get a chance to read this weeks Economist there is a special report on Food Politics. I won't give away the article but they play devils advocate suggesting that our ethical choices of choosing "organic, local etc" foods are actually making things worse. Of course being the cynic that I am I figured the article was probably submitted by the USDA or the cattle association but it was interesting anyway.

[johanna]

Hey L -- haven't read your blog in a while, will have to catch up! Glad to know your foodie life is still very lively =) Happy December 13th! xo

[radish]

what an odd coincidence. just a few days ago, i was flipping through my current issue of Bon Appetit and there is a recipe for a braised oxtail stew, which I definitely plan on making sometime next week.. your recipe, very similar to the one I'll be working off of, looks superb!!

[Andrea]

I had oxtail on my "things I want to cook" list. Thank your for giving me a recipe to speed up the process -- (I read an interview where Paula Deen just raved about how oxtails were her favorite thing to eat.)

[Luisa]

Tanna - you're right, it shouldn't be such a radical idea. I couldn't agree more. How do we get more people to agree?

Gemma - I'd actually really like to read that - thanks for pointing it out to me.

Jo - hey you! Thank you very much... ;) See you soon, I hope!

Radish - how funny. Guess it's oxtail stew season!

Andrea - no problem! They are pretty delicious. A little fussy to eat with a fork and knife, but there's nothing wrong with picking them up with your fingers ;)

[ann]

Luisa, I think you're perfectly correct about the "reverse snob appeal" thing with oxtail and other odd bits of meat... short ribs, offal, they're all way more expensive than i'd expect these days!
this dish sounds delish... not sure i have the patience for it though ;-)

[lee]

Yay for grass-fed beef. I'm with you on this one. I have a chest freezer and buy 1/4 of beef or a whole pig at a time to save money. I know that's probably not possible where you are!

Gemma- I read that article and I think you should re-read it. It did not say that organic and local are making things worse. It said that there are trade offs for every way we choose to raise, buy or transport our food.
I choose local because I want to support the farmers in my area and I don't care if they are possibly not farming as "efficiently" as they could be.

[Julie]

I remember my grandmother making oxtail stew --although nothing as exotic or enticing as this. Your stew looks pretty darned delicious in that picture.

Here's a link to the article Gemma mentioned:
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=8380592

[Luisa]

Ann - it is a bit time-consuming, it's true. Which means that I don't know when I'll try it again. But it was sooo good and the leftovers were sooo good...you should try it if you like oxtail and have a lazy weekend ahead of you!

Lee - a freezer full of pig! I definitely don't have that, but good for you for buying directly from the farmer.

Julie - thank you for the link! I'm now fully entrenched in Fast Food Nation, too. And you know what? The stew was as good as it looks.

[moniker]

oh, my goodness, that sounds so delicious. as for the price of oxtail, i can tell you that at least at my favourite market in melbourne, australia, it moved in the mid nineties from "practically free" to "what your average cheap cut of meat costs", as many chefs all rediscovered "comfort food".

[Leah]

Hey Luisa - quick question. I'm thinking of making this up for my boyfriend and me in the coming weeks, and maybe one other friend (a guy). If I'm only cooking for 2-3, would you recommend making the whole recipe because it's so darn yummy, or would you cut it in half?

[Leah]

I KNOW HOW TO READ, I SWEAR. Luisa is the nicest ever.

[spots]

Hi, I found ur blog while searching for asian oxtail stew recipes. This one sounds perfect for me but I had a question - cld I omit the overnight and 2nd day portions of the recipe? i.e., do everything till step 3 and then jus serve it over rice straight away? What's the benefit of keeping everything in the fridge & then reheating it the next day? Thanks!

[Luisa]

Spots - the overnight step is to help you skim the fat off the surface of the sauce. I presume the flavors come together a bit better, too. But neither of these steps seem crucial - just remember that your sauce might be a little oilier or fattier than you might like.

[spots]

Ah... glad to know that I can skip the overnight steps without losing too much...sauce is oilier ... hmm. That's ok with me!! ;)

[Janet Hall]

I just made this stew and Googled to see what I could learn. I do not have a sauce, I have a kind of sludge. yes, I took off the fat. It amounted to about 2 T after that, and was very thick, sort of like something you'd find on the garage floor. But smelling divine! After I warmed it and placed (not poured) it on top of the oxtails, i put about a cup of water in the little pan I'd warmed it in, and poured that over the oxtails. Oxtails are one of my favorite things but James Beard's recipe is far superior. This is faux-Chinese, using all the ingredients for that kind of taste, but with techniques of other cuisines. A noble effort but I'm back with Beard.

Believe me, taking off the fat from oxtails IS critical. You can speed it up by putting the bowl in the freezer. But I wouldn't skip it. Any braised dish is better for a time in the fridge. That's the "point."

[ElPico]

I know I am a little late with this, but here in Honolulu the prices of oxtail, beef tongue, chicken feet, and other "cheap" meats are ridiculous. I think this is due to the demand from the large Asian population, in addition to the already crazy price-of-paradise tariff that is applied to everything.

[ian]

i want to make this with chicken, do you think i still need 3 hour cooking time

[Chinese Traditional Recipes]

Wow, the cooking way of this dish is great and easy to cook, I’ll try it later and I hope it tastes delicious. Just one suggestion: If you add some cooking pictures it will be easier to follow!