A dish most comforting
March 18th, 2008 by Trinifood
The weather’s been very yucky in these parts lately. It’s been cold, wet and windy, not the conditions for going out and enjoying the nightlife.
On nights like this, there’s nothing to warm the bones like a bowl of steamy, comfort food. I had planned to cook a traditional oxtail soup in the style of Port of Spain’s Breakfast Shed with some meaty joints I got from Farmer Sharp at Borough Market but then I saw a tempting recipe by Nigel Slater in the Observer Food Monthly that made my mouth water.
Slater, one of this country’s best food writers is a lover of comfort food and this recipe for Braised oxtail with mustard sauce shows why he is so loved.
To give the dish a bit more kick, I seasoned the oxtail with a little bit of jerk seasoning and put some chadon beni sauce in with the onions. After two hours of cooking, the result was tender meat dropping off the bone that was flavoured enough by the seasoning and the wine to eat at that point. The creamy, tangy and delightfully rich mustard sauce isn’t going to help any weight loss efforts but who cares, it was an absolute revelation.
It’s made for a marriage with mashed potatoes and I’d strongly recommend this combination as a simple main course for a small dinner. Oxtail is rather inexpensive so the money you save on meat can go into a buying a good wine or an upmarket cider for you and your guests.
Posted in Food Matters | 9 Comments »
It’s St Patrick’s Day and there’s wild carousing, loud singing and gallons of Guinness being drunk - and that’s just at my local pub! If those are the scenes at my local, then it must be an absolute riot in the streets of Dublin - and Chicago!