How to make Rabo De Toro - Spanish Oxtail Stew

 

Even the Spanish faced with cold weather crave Winter stews and this is their wonderful 'Rabo De Toro' - or Spanish Bull Tail Stew, it's very easy and inexpensive to make, if you can find oxtail that is.

Men are gravy lovers and this stew has just the best sauce ever. Oxtail is beef which is slow cooked in red wine, it has nothing to do with or the taste of oxtail soup.

Rabo Del Toro is best served the next day or the day after in it's sauce reduced in the Andalucian style as in the above photo. The slow cooking ensures the beef just falls off the bone.

I like to serve it on some mash to get the best from the sauce but the Spanish would serve it with fried pots and boiled carrots. The difference between  Rabo de Toro estofado and Rabo de Toro Cordoba (Andalucia) is that in Andalucia the meat is removed and the sauce is then blended.

This dish is all about technique. 

Start it in a pan.
Then slow cook it.
Then finish in a pan.

Ingredients:-
1lb meat
Carrotts
Onion
Tin toms
Bay leaf
Garlic
Cinnamon stick
Brown sugar
Beef stock
Red wine

So season heavily your meat and flour generously then brown the meat, if you think it's browned enough keep going until really browned. Remove and then add chopped onions and soften add some garlic chopped, add thickly sliced carrots, a cinnamon stick. Soften for ten minutes. Add half a bottle of red wine, some brandy (if you have some) flambe if you like. Next add a tin of chopped toms and some bay leaves and some brown sugar, and beef stock. Bring to a simmer for thirty minutes, put the stew in a slow cooker and cook it on low for a day or over night, leave it alone during the cooking, don't stir it. Allow to cool, remove any fat if you like, it's not a fatty dish, even though you may think it might be. 

For estafado warm thoroughly and serve, for Cordoba take the meat out, warm the sauce and blend or mash the veg, re-add the meat, cook through and serve.