Braised Oxtail

This Christmas, elevate your holiday feast with a rich and flavourful Jamaican oxtail stew. Tender, slow-cooked oxtail mingles with butterbeans, aromatic herbs, and a perfect balance of spice, creating a hearty dish that warms both heart and home. With this recipe, you'll serve up a festive meal full of tradition, comfort, and irresistible island flavour.

Ingredients

2 lb (907.18 g) Oxtail chopped into 2 to 3cm chunks

1 cup (236.59 g) butter beans

1 tbsps oxtail or all-purpose seasoning

1 tsp browning

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tbsps dark brown sugar

1 Maggi stock cube

1.8 oz (51.03 g) onion sliced

2.5 oz (70.87 g) bell peppers sliced

1/2 Scotch bonnet pepper seeds, remove and finely chopped

2.1 oz (59.53 g) tomato diced

1.5 oz (42.52 g) stalks scallion (green onion) chopped

4 (3) cloves garlic crushed

5 (3) sprigs thyme

0.28 oz (7.94 g) freshly grated ginger

7 pimento berries (allspice)

2 tbsps ketchup

3 tbsps cooking oil

Water

1 small lime to wash the oxtail

1 tbsp vinegar to wash the oxtail

METHOD

Wash the oxtail in water with vinegar and lime juice. Drain away all the water, getting the meat as dry as possible.

Season the oxtail with salt, oxtail/all-purpose seasoning, garlic, ginger, browning and Scotch bonnet pepper. Mix the ingredients until the oxtail is completely coated with seasoning. If you like, leave to marinate for at least an hour.

Add the cooking oil and the brown sugar to a pressure cooker pot on high heat.

Make the oil hot and the sugar melt, then add the oxtail. Sear the meat so that all sides are brown.

Add 2 1/2 cups of water to the pressure cooker, close with the pressure cooker lid and cook at high pressure for 30-35 minutes.

Make sure the pressure cooker cools off, then carefully remove the lid. Check that the meat is soft and falling off the bone.

Put to continue cooking on medium-high heat. Add the onion, thyme, scallion, tomato, bell pepper, butterbeans, ketchup and Maggi stock cube.

Cover the pot with a normal pot cover and let it cook for another 30 minutes.

Notes

Try getting oxtail that has very little fat on it. Too much fat on the oxtail makes the gravy fatty.

You can use more or less Scotch bonnet peppers if you like your oxtail stew more or less spicy

jamaicanfoodsandrecipes.com