Riaan's ouma's oxtail recipe

2 years ago my friend Riaan invited us to dinner and presented us with delicious oxtail on a very cold winter evening. Having tried (and failed) to make oxtail numerous times I immediately set about wheedling the recipe out of him.
Being of generous nature he typed it up for me and even took me through it to make sure I understood all the tricks involved.
The first time I made it was a total disaster, it came out dry and burnt - I was convinced he had left out some secret ingredient. What I have subsequently discovered is:

1. Make sure your oven's thermostat is functional. All the cheffy-types know this, apparently, and you can buy an oven thermometer in most kitchen shops. For instance, if I set my oven to 180 degrees it is actually 220, this is partly why the first attempt resembled burnt offerings.
2. Make sure you have a heavy casserole dish that seals properly, and use lots of tin foil to provide it with an even tighter seal. This is why the first one was dry.

So here is Riaan's ouma's oxtail recipe - please try it, now that I understand the temperature/casserole rules it turned out perfectly.



For every 2kg of oxtail you will need:

• 3 onions, chopped
• 5ml marjoram
• 2,5ml fine coriander
• 3 bay leaves
• 10ml salt
• black pepper
• 50ml tomato paste
• 25ml vinegar
• 375ml red wine
• 10ml paprika
• 10ml sugar
• 1 cube beef stock in 500ml boiling water (Riaan's note here is that he adds all the above ingredients except the onions to the water mixture)

Trim the excess fat off the oxtail, rinse under running water and pat dry. Roll in flour (shake off excess flour) and brown in a little oil. Set aside. In the same saucepan fry the chopped onion until golden brown.

Pack oxtail in casserole, stack fried onions on top and pour water mixture over.

Cover with foil, put lid on casserole and bake at 180 degrees for at least 5 hours. Riaan's note here says: "My best way of cooking is 4 hours at 180 degrees, switch oven off and leave casserole in the oven overnight. I also like to get rid of most of the fat on top at this point - can easily be more than a cupful."

Reheat the following day for 2 more hours at 180 degrees.

I served it with rice and roast vegetables (sweet potato, butternut, red onion, aubergine and baby marrows) which I popped into the oven in a roasting pan for the last hour of cooking.

Walter (not in this picture), who is clearly biased, says it's the best oxtail he's eaten anywhere in the world.