To say my boyfriend loves oxtail is an understatement. Truthfully I had never eaten it until I met him. It's popular in Botswana where he is from. He usually makes it with a mixture of things, slow cooked until it falls of the bone and eats it with either bread or potato. I decided I wanted to try making my own version of this Botswana-inspired dish and thought a risotto would go nicely. I got some really good oxtail from the Prahran market, but you can find it at most markets in winter (however it sells out very quickly!).
Now these are the quantities if you
are making it for a family (the first time I made it I only made enough
for 2 and the portions were much better and a lot less fat from the
meat).
Ingredients (my usual rough estimations)
2L beef stock liquid
4 bay leaves
4 sprigs of thyme
pepper
2 teaspoons garlic butter
1 kg ox tail
olive oil
2 small brown onions
steak and chops seasoning
1 can whole peeled tomatoes
2 cups risotto
Season the meat with olive oil and steak and chops seasoning (if you can find it, otherwise salt and pepper will do).
Brown the onions and add the meat to gently brown. Add in 1L stock, tomatoes, bay leaves, thyme, salt and pepper. Leave on a low heat to simmer for roughly 3 hours (or until reduced enough).
Once the oxtail looks like it is reduced enough, spoon of most of the oil layer at the top and discard (alternatively if you make the oxtail the night before you can leave it in the fridge and spoon the hardened top layer of fat off, then reheat on the stove).
In a large frying pan with some olive oil, gently coat and heat the risotto grains for about 1 minute, add the garlic butter and cup by cup add in 1L beef stock. Also spoon in the liquid from the pot with oxtail in it. Keep doing this until the rice is cooked.
Once done, serve the risotto with meat on top with some sourdough. YUM!
