Braised Beef Oxtail with Asian Flavours in the Pressure Cooker or Slow Cooker

 

If you enjoy Asian style cuisine you will love this dish. Oxtail is a cut of meat which appeared quite regularly as a stew at the dinner table when I was growing up, however it is absolutely transformed here with this remarkable combination of Asian flavours. It is finger lickin' good. I think that your whole family will love it.

A few years ago I received this very nice comment from a reader who had found my blog and really enjoyed this Oxtail recipe. His comment really brightened up my day. I hope he and his family are still enjoying this meal. Possibly, thanks to him, this has been one of the most popular recipes on my blog. If you are still reading my blog, thanks so much.

Comment: Hi, I am about to make this for the 4th time, and I added it to my extended-family AnyList recipe database, credited and linked back to you of course. You really knocked this out of the park, the flavors are as good or better than so many much more complicated preparations I have tried. My kids were formerly averse to the fattiness of oxtails no matter how much was rendered, but the aroma jetting out from the cooker proved irresistible. Unfortunately oxtails have skyrocketed in price here in the USA, the awareness of Jamaican versions now joined by enthusiasm for Korean and Vietnamese demand. Oh well. Cheers from Philadelphia!

 Sometimes I still need to follow a recipe when using Asian ingredients, as it can be a fine line between getting the balance right or messing it up completely and the resulting flavours being quite ordinary or just too strong. I am much more confident with creating an original recipe for Italian, French or even Middle Eastern food than any kind of Asian cuisine. Perhaps that is also why so many people still use bottled pastes and sauces if they feel love Asian flavours like we do. However, there is no need to buy a bottled sauce, as the simple combinations in this recipe give a perfect result.

Chinese Braised Oxtail

Ingredients:
1 kg beef oxtail, trimmed
1/2 cup (125ml) Japanese or Korean soy sauce
1/4 cup Chinese cooking wine
1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
6 cloves garlic, bruised
12cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced thickly
4 green onions, chopped coarsely
2 star anise
2 cinnamon sticks
3 x 5cm strips orange rind
1/2 cup water
2 green or spring onions, shredded finely for garnish

Let's cook:

1. Cut oxtail into 4 cm pieces or have your butcher do this for you.
2. Combine soy sauce, wine, brown sugar, garlic, ginger, chopped green onion, star anise, cinnamon sticks, orange rind and the water into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Or alternatively heat it up in the pot if you can to save you using another saucepan.
3. Transfer this cooking base of sauces and spices to either your pressure cooker pot or your slow cooker pot.
4. Add the Oxtail pieces to the sauce.
5. Seal the lid on your pressure cooker or your slow cooker and proceed to cook according to the directions for your appliance.
6. We cooked this the first time in February 2017, in our Pressure cooker, which took 25 minutes and during the heat of Summer this is the best way to cook this dish. However I would still cook this in the pressure cooker even though we are enjoying a gorgeous Winter right now.
7. Using your slow cooker would also produce a delicious result and if I am slow cooking now during Winter  I love to slow cook in the kitchen to warm up the house. During Summer I take the pot outside and plug it into the power outlet on our patio.
8. Remove the lid. Transfer oxtail pieces to your serving plates, and drizzle with about 1/3 cup of the braising liquid. 
9. Sprinkle with shredded spring onion and serve with Asian greens and rice to soak up the delicious sauce and flavours.

This dish is adapted from the recipe book of my Phillips All-in-one Slow Cooker and Pressure Cooker Electronic Pot. I first made this dish in 2017, when Mr. HRK gave me the cooker as a birthday gift. My birthday is on the 19th February, and I first posted this on the 22nd February 2017.  How time flies. It was a brief post back then, when I was still fairly new to blogging.

This is the kind of dish where you eat what you can with your knife and fork and then you just have to pick the bones up in your fingers and eat every last little morsel that you can find. It's a keeper.

All gone.

I'm currently working on posting about an eventful and delicious meal I cooked last Friday night which is going to take me a little while, so I thought I would give this Chinese Braised Oxtail post a refresher in the meantime. 

Warm wishes,

Pauline