Slow-Cooked Oxtail Stew Recipe

The days are getting cooler and the nights are drawing in. Salads are more rare and I’m now starting to crave warm food again. I’m talking soups and stews and slow-cooked meals. 

A few months back, before the whole covid madness started, I was chatting to Carol Banahan for my series on the Women Of The Irish Food Industry and, last week, she kindly sent me her range to try. I’m always on the hunt for a decent ready made stock as I just never take the time to make my own. I know I should but I just don’t and that’s that. 

There are two ways you can make this slow-cooked dish. You can either use a slow-cooker or if you have one, you can use a dutch-oven, that most wonderful of classic cast iron kitchen ware. 

The ingredients are deliberately kept really simple as I wanted to taste the stock. Now that I have and now that I know how good it is, I’m happy to tell you that if you’re in Ireland you can find a list of stockists here.

This recipe gave us stew for 2 hungry adults for 2 days.

Ingredients 

• 1 kg or thereabouts of oxtail
• 500 g of carrots
• 2 small onions or a few shallots
• 1 bulb of good garlic (I like the French purple one best)
• 1 pouch of beef stock or 2 beef stock cubes
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 branches of fresh thyme 
• 1 glass of white wine
• flour to roll the meat in

Method 

• Slice and cook the onion on low heat until it’s translucent. You don’t need it to brown. 
• Once that’s done, turn up the heat and pour a bit more oil in the bottom of the pot. You will have tossed the meat in some flour as this will help with thickening the stew. Brown the meat and turn down the heat right back. 
• Add the white wine to deglaze the bottom and give it a good stir. Add your bay leaves, garlic (the cloves should be separated but left unpeeled), the thyme and your carrots topped and tailed. Cover in stock.
• If you are cooking in the slow cooker, cook it on high for 90 min and then low for 4 hours. If you are cooking it in a dutch oven, put the lid on and cook it on low heat for 5 hours. 
• Serve with a very very buttery mash.