Italian-Inspired Braised Oxtails with Fried Capers and Sage Leaves

Family Meal, Two-for-One, Freezes Well

SERVES: 6, with leftovers

I’m going to encourage you to serve this braised oxtail dish as Italians do, in courses. For a primo (first course), toss some of the braising sauce with your favorite pasta, such as linguine, spaghetti, or fettuccine, or, if you are so inclined, with homemade egg pasta cut into the wide noodles called pappardelle. There should be just enough sauce to generously coat the noodles: They should never be swimming in sauce. Add a sprinkling of freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and dig in.

Then serve the oxtails napped with some braising sauce and garnished with the fried capers and sage, accompanied by oven-roasted cauliflower or fennel or an oven roasted root vegetable, such as parsnips, celery root, turnips, or carrots. Another nice presentation is to serve the oxtails in a shallow bowl on top of some pureed celery root or mashed rutabaga.

INGREDIENTS:

• 5–6 pounds oxtails
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
• 2 leeks, white and pale green parts, split and thinly sliced
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 3 anchovy fillets, minced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 cups dry red wine (I use Italian)
• ¼ cup grappa, kirsch, or brandy (optional)
• 4 cups homemade beef stock or canned low-sodium chicken broth, plus more if needed
• Zest of 1 lemon, removed in long strips with a vegetable peeler
• 2 bay leaves
• 6 fresh or canned plum tomatoes, chopped
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
• Pasta of your choice ( 1 pound dried or 1½ pounds fresh)
• Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

GARNISH:

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 30 fresh sage leaves
• 3 tablespoons capers, drained and patted dry on paper towels

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F.
2. Trim any external fat from the oxtails and sprinkle them all over with the chopped sage and salt and pepper. Heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat and add the oil. Fry the oxtails in batches, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Remove to a platter and set aside.
3. Pour off all but about 3 tablespoons of fat from the pot and add the onion, carrot, leeks, celery, and anchovies. Reduce the heat to medium, cover, and cook until the vegetables are soft and beginning to color, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Pour in the red wine and grappa (if using) and bring to a boil, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Boil until reduced to about ½ cup, 10 to 15 minutes.
4. Add the stock, lemon zest, bay leaves, and tomatoes. Return the oxtails and any juices to the pot, in layers if needed so that they’re tightly packed. Cover, place in the oven, and cook for 3 hours, or until the meat is tender and almost falling off the bone. If not done, cover and cook longer, checking every 30 minutes. During the cooking, check the pot every hour or so to make sure there is sufficient liquid, adding stock if necessary. When the oxtails are tender, stir in the basil. (At this point, you can cool the oxtails and sauce and then refrigerate separately overnight. The next day, remove all the congealed fat from the surface and continue with the recipe.)
5. If you didn’t refrigerate the dish, remove the oxtails and degrease the sauce. (If you did refrigerate it, reheat the sauce.) Discard the bay leaves and lemon zest. If the sauce is thin, boil to reduce it until just syrupy; don’t reduce it too much, or the gelatin released from the oxtails will make the sauce very sticky. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
6. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta. Meanwhile, prepare the garnish by heating the oil in a small nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sage leaves and cook, stirring, for about 1 minute, or until crisp and starting to brown. Remove with a slotted spoon to a paper towel and set aside. Add the capers to the pan and fry them for 1 to 3 minutes, or until they turn grayish brown and begin to crisp. Transfer the capers to a paper towel; save the oil.
7.  When the pasta is done, toss with enough sauce to adequately coat it and serve as a first course with the cheese. While enjoying the pasta course, gently rewarm the oxtails in the remaining sauce.
8. To serve, place the oxtails and sauce in shallow serving bowls, top each with a few sage leaves and capers, and drizzle with some of the frying oil.

ALTERNATIVE CUTS:

• Use only collagen-laden tough cuts. Good choices are beef shank, neck, cheeks, or tongue. Many cuts of bison are suitable because bison is generally tougher than beef, with more collagen. Besides the equivalent cuts mentioned above, you can use any bison chuck cut, especially hump or neck meat. Bison short ribs and brisket, cut into chunks, are good choices as well. This stew is also delicious made with veal shank, veal cheeks, or breast of veal, cut into pieces.

COOK’S NOTES:

• Oxtails are typically sold as one whole tail that is cut between each joint, yielding rounds of meat in decreasingly smaller diameter from the rump end to the tip. Tails weigh 2½ to 3 pounds each, so you’ll need 2 tails’ worth of oxtails. Since the pieces near the tip of the tail are mostly bone, allow 1 large piece and 2 or 3 small pieces per serving.
• You can remove the meat from the bone before serving. Use a sharp paring knife to tease the meat from each section of bone, leaving it in small chunks. Don’t bother trying to remove what little meat there is from the tip sections; serve them to those who like sucking on the bones.

LEFTOVERS:

• Remove the meat from the bones and combine it with the sauce. Serve the next day over polenta, pasta, or rice. Or make a baked pasta by tossing the meat and sauce with cooked penne, elbow macaroni, rigatoni, or another tube-shape pasta. Stir in cups ricotta cheese and 1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or pecorino cheese, spread in a baking dish, and bake until bubbly and browning on the surface, about 40 minutes.