Cooking with beer: Slow cooked oxtail in stout

Here’s another one of the delicious recipes that was entered into the cooking with beer competition it’s from @rickfurzer who describes him self as a Beer drinker, whisky freak & wine lover. A booze & food glutton who cooks quite a bit. Which is probably why this recipe sounds so good.

Unfortunately there isn’t a photo so if anyone makes it before me then please send a pic in, i might even buy you a beer.

Slow cooked oxtail in stout

• 1.5kg Oxtail (get meatier fatter pieces)
• 2 onions (peeled and chopped into large chunks)
• 2 carrots (peeled and sliced)
• 2 sticks of celery (sliced)
• 4 cloves of garlic (peeled and sliced)
• 1 ltr of stout (enough to cover all of the ingredients)
• 3 tablespoons of tomato puree
• A few sprigs of thyme
• A few bay leafs
• Chilli powder
• Plain flour (enough to coat the oxtail)
• Salt & Pepper
• Oil (sunflower or vegetable)

A couple of important notes:

• you will need a big ovenproof casserole dish with lid
• you want a stout between 4 and 6%. A stronger stout is thicker and you’ll need to alter your volumes as it will reduce and thicken in a different way to a ‘smaller’ sibling. A good porter will work here as well. I’d recommend Sam Smiths Oatmeal but you can pretty much use anything here e.g. Marble Chocolate, Kernel Porter, Harviestoun Old Engine Oil – even Guinness works well.

Method

1. Turn oven on to 150 degrees C
2. Trim off some of excess fat from oxtail pieces (if necessary) and coat in salt & pepper seasoned flour.
3. Put the casserole dish on a medium heat hob, add a good slug of oil and add the onion, carrots and celery pieces. After a couple of minutes rub the sprigs of time between your palms to drop in the time leaves – whilst keeping the twigs in your hands. Add some chilli powder (just a bit of heat here don’t go mental). Stir and couple of times, season with salt & pepper and add the sliced garlic. Cook for a couple more minutes then remove from the casserole dish and put the casserole back on the hob.
4. Add a good slug of oil to the casserole dish and pan fry the oxtail pieces in batches until nicely browned all over. Probably take about 5-7 mins each batch on medium heat hob.
5. Add all the oxtail and all the veg to the casserole dish and pour in the beer, making sure everything is completely covered. Scraping the bottom of the pan to integrate any of the good stuff from the frying.
6. Add the tomato puree and bay leafs and bring to the boil, stirring to make sure nothing is stuck to the bottom.
7. Turn off the hob, put lid on casserole and put on a shelf in the middle of the oven and cook for 5-5.5 hours
8. After 3 hours remove from oven, skim off any oil (if there’s too much it won’t reduce down). At this point you might want to cook it for a further 2 to 2.5 hours depending on the amount of liquor.
9. After cooking time has elapsed. Take off the lid and your dish the oxtail should be black, unctuous and can be cut with a spoon. Again if there’s any surface oil just skim off.
10. Serve with butternut squash mash, Dijon mustard, wilted spinach and more beer.

I got the idea of cooking oxtail in stout from Waitrose but this is my own recipe.