I'm not a meat eater but my family are. I will cook meat for them but have to admit to wearing disposable gloves when handling a raw chicken or joint of pork. I also wear my disposable gloves to pick over a cooked chicken or as today had me doing, picking over an oxtail! Now since Hubby and I watched Heston Blumenthal At Home he has wanted to try the oxtail pudding recipe; or should I say, me try the recipe. Every week I use one or the other of two family butchers in the area which are great and use local produce. Whichever I am nearest to when I need meat I shop in. So for the last few weeks I have bought what I needed and looked at the oxtail but never bought it. Well, today I asked for 1kg of oxtail and took the plunge to cook it. Must say it was not the prettiest looking piece of meat I have bought. Meant to take a picture but forgot in my eagerness to get it cooking. But here is a google picture so you have an idea what I was dealing with.
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| Image from Google |
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The price was quite cheap, I think it was £5.00 per kilo. I bought a kilo and browned it in the frying pan then added an assortment of veg and stock, bay leaf, peppercorns and deglazed the pan with brandy which went in the pot too after setting it alight (all rather cheffy lol ) and cooked it for hours and hours in my slowcooker. Then this evening I took the tail out of the slowcooker and picked all the flesh off the bone and picked off all the slimy yuck (with my gloves on, of course) From 1kg of oxtail I ended up with this
266g of meat once picked off the bone and fat removed. Not a great deal to make a basin pudding with so I'm thinking of sauteing some mushrooms to add to the meat and making a suet meat swiss roll type thing. Not making it for a few days so shall freeze this and the gravy I made from the cooking liquor and will post the finished product maybe Thursday or Friday. But you can't beat a local butcher for cheap cuts of meat. I think skirt of beef was only £3.15 a kilo and another cut of beef was of a similar price. I love that you can buy just 3 sausages if that is all you want or 200g of stewing meat. Your not having to buy a 500g pack like in the supermarket it's just get what you want which is very money saving :)
Are you fortunate enough to have a great local butcher? Do you use them?
All for now, bye x
P.S. Welcome to my new follower Janice.
I've never cooked oxtail, though I used to have it when I lived at home, my mum used to cook it. We had two great butchers when I came to live here and both have now closed down, but a new one has opened up in the last couple of years which is good.
ReplyDeleteI buy from the butcher on the indoor market in town. I've never had a bad piece of meat from him, nothing is too much trouble and his prices are very good too - you even get a discount for buying in bulk.
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