Oxtail Braised with Star Anise
Oxtail is popular in Chinese cuisine, where sticky gelatinous textures are very much appreciated. Coated in a rich anise-and-soy flavored sauce, even the small pieces with little meat are irresistible. As with all oxtail dishes, make this at least a day in advance so you can chill it and then easily remove the layer of fat and set it aside for cooking. The flavor also improves if the dish is made ahead.
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Pat the oxtail pieces dry and season lightly with salt and generously with freshly ground black pepper. In a flameproof casserole, heat 2 tablespoons of the dripping over medium-high heat. Brown the oxtail in batches, adding more dripping if necessary. As they brown, transfer the oxtail pieces to a plate.
Discard any fat from the pot, then pour in the wine and bring to a boil, deglazing the pot by scraping up the browned bits from the bottom. Mix the water, soy sauce and sugar then pour into the pot. Add the star anise, spring onions, ginger and garlic and bring to a boil, then remove from the heat.
Using a vegetable peeler, remove 4 large strips of zest from the orange; reserve the orange. Add the zest and oxtail to the pot, cover with a piece of damp parchment paper and then the lid, and transfer to the oven. Cook for 1½ hours.
Turn the pieces of oxtail, cover again with parchment and the lid and cook for another 1 ½ hours, or until the oxtail is very tender. Transfer the oxtail to a dish and stain the sauce through a sieve into a glass measuring cup or a bowl; discard the debris in the sieve. Cool, then cover the sauce and oxtail and refrigerate overnight.
The next day, preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C). Remove all the fat from the top of the jellied liquid and set the fat aside for another use. Place the oxtail pieces in a single layer in baking dish.
Heat the sauce in a small saucepan over low heat until liquid, then pour over the oxtail. Cover the dish, transfer to the oven and cook for 30 minutes.
Uncover the baking dish, and stir the oxtail, increase the oven temperature to 400°F (200°C) and cook for 15 minutes, uncovered. Turn the pieces of oxtail to coat with the sauce and cook for another 15 minutes or until hot and glazed.
Meanwhile, squeeze ¼ cup / 60 ml of juice from the orange.
Remove the glazed oxtail from the oven and pour in the orange juice. Stir the juice into the sauce, and serve.
Jennifer McLagan
Jennifer McLagan has been called courageous, a contrarian and even a little crazy. Well in these dietarily correct times, she is definitely a provocative iconoclast who challenges us and makes us rethink our relationship to what we eat. And while she creates delicious recipes she believes that food is more than recipes. So equipped with a quirky sense of humour, a taste for the bizarre, and bowerbird tendencies she delves into food’s history, myth and culture adding to the literature of food and cooking. Her books garner prizes everywhere, BONES won the James Beard Best Single Subject Cookbook award, was a winner in the Gourmand World Cookbook Award, and a finalist in the IACP cookbook awards. FAT won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Best Cookbook Cover, the Silver Sprout Award, and both the IACP and James Beard Awards for Best Single Subject Cookbook. It was also named Cookbook of the Year 2009 by the Beard Foundation and is short listed for Cuisine Canada awards. But her publisher just wishes they’d sell better.