Odd ends

[muckefuck]

Weekend before last, I bought me an oxtail. I didn't know what I was going to use it for but it looked too good to pass up, at least what with me being in a buyin' mood. I covered it with water and stewed it from the time I brought it home until a little before I went to bed--nearly ten hours in all. When I went to put it into a tupperware container, the meat slipped right off the bones and I was able to collect 'em and toss 'em out.

In the meantime, I decided to make a German-style Fleischsalat using the meat and a li'l of the broth. So on Saturday, I brought the whole mess to a boil, pulled out a few chunks of cartilage I'd missed, and then strained it. This gave me about a cup-n-a-half of oxtail meat and just under two cups of broth. The broth went back in the fridge and the meat got marinated with pickle, raw onion, cider vinegar, mustard, and I don't remember what-all else.

The end product was surprisingly well received for the simple salad that it was. But this still left me wondrin' what to do with the stock. I confided my dilemma to princeofcairo and he told me, "make some rice with coconut milk and have the best damn beans and rice ever". So tonight, that's exactly what I did.

Well, actually I started last night with the moros y cristianos recipe from Penelope Casas. My one major change was substituting Bosnian sudjuk for the bacon. Nothin' against bacon, of course, but it struck me that beef sausage might go better with beef broth. And indeed it did. I was worried a night in liquid would make the beans too soft, but they held up just fine.

Was it the best beans and rice ever? I asked monshu that and he diplomatically said, "It's definitely one of the best." Certainly there was no shortage of oxtaily goodness in the sauce and my worries about using too much onion (all I had was a big honkin' vidalia) were groundless. I made twice as much rice as usual for the two of us with the thought the extra could be boiled in the leftover coconut milk for pudding, but we wolfed down so much we barely have enough left for a side tomorrow night.

Comments

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

That sounds good!
Oxtail is quite popular here, specially when it's sold as "rabo de toro"

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Next time I was thinking of using it for ropa vieja. If only tomatoes didn't give me so much trouble!

You know I was taken aback to find that Latin Americans don't seem to recognise the name "moros y cristianos"?

[bunj.livejournal.com]

Mario Batalle has a good gnocci in oxtail ragu recipe I've used before. It's time-consuming, but tasty. Although ropa vieja sounds like a nice idea as well...

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

I don't either, it reminds me of a party somewhere down in Alicante.

Terms for bovines

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

What often is called an "ox" (buey) here in Spain is called a "steer" in the US. Nowadays there aren't very many bovines used for draft, or "oxen", neither here nor there.

If you want to be really confused, look at the Wikipedia article (in English) about "cattle" to see all the various terms used for bovines. Also, what is considered as "veal" is different in the US than in Spain.

Chuck