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| FOOD Oxtail for the winter chill The other morning early, driving into town over De Waal Drive, I was greeted by a gratifying sight: down below the harbour an early morning mist lay. The mist had settled during the night and now lingered even though the sun was already up. It created a dazzling effect, for it seemed as if the ships and boats were floating on a thick bed of cotton wool. In Cape Town, this is an unmistakable sign that autumn was here at last. And the thought of autumn, with the winter chill settling in soon afterwards, made me think of oxtail, which is my favourite winter dish. I made it the first time for friends a number of years ago and, almost ten years later, one of them wrote to me from London, remembering the dish and asking for the recipe. Mind you, it probably rates as comfort food because her relationship was falling apart. So if you’re going through a divorce, maybe this is for you. But if you like a rich dish, a blazing fire in the hearth with howling winter wind outside, then there’s nothing quite like a hearty oxtail dish. Italian versions of oxtail contain bacon or pork and vegetables and recently I read a review of a Vietnamese restaurant in New York that serves medallions of rare tuna crusted with ginger, and arranged around a succulent mounds of braised oxtail. But there is, for me, only one recipe for oxtail, and that is Elizabeth David’s Queue de Boeuf Aux Olives Noir - stewed oxtail with black olives which is to be found in her French Provincial Cooking, published by Penguin. One of the reasons why I prefer this recipe from the French countryside, is that it is allowed to rest overnight so that all the congealed fat can be skimmed off the following day. Believe me, oxtail produces an amount of fat when cooked that is simply staggering. Another reason is that the orange zest gives an unexpected fresh flavour to the dish, complementing the deep rich tones of the meat and sauce. The meat is flamed with brandy to concentrate the flavour, and steeped in red wine! For 2 oxtails the ingredients are olive oil, brandy, white wine, stock or water, a big bouquet of bayleaves, thyme, parsley, orange peel and crushed garlic cloves, about 250 g of stoned black olives. Steep the oxtail in cold water for a few hours, take out and drain. Heat 2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a big heavy stew-pan. Let the oxtail sizzle gently a few minutes. Pour over 4 to 6 tablespoons of warmed brandy and set light to it. When the flames die down, add a large glass of white wine. Let it bubble fiercely a minute or so. Add just enough stock to come level with the pieces of oxtail. Bury the bouquet in the centre. Cover the pan. Transfer to a very slow oven, Gas no 1, 290 deg F. Cook for about 3 hours. Pour off all the liquid and leave until the next day. Remove the fat. Heat the remaining stock; pour it back over the oxtail. Add the stoned olives.
Cook for another hour or so
on top of the stove, until the oxtail is bubbling hot and the meat coming away from the bones. Serve with a dish of plain boiled rice.
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