Coda alla vaccinara – Roman oxtail stew
It is a dish from the Lazio region of Italy, where the beef tail is stewed for a long time with vegetables, a large part of which is celery. In addition, Italian bacon, pancetta, red or white wine, Italian herbs, spices, and a little cinnamon add flavor to the food. It is suitable to serve the food with polenta or pasta of your choice. This is a food that gets better and better as it stands, so it’s worth making more of it at once.
Preparation time: 4.5 to 5 hours
Level: Medium
Serves: four to six
Ingredients:
2 kg oxtail cut into pieces
200 g of pancetta
30 g wheat flour
250 g carrots cut into discs
50 g of olive oil
50 g lard or butter
2 medium onions, finely chopped
3 medium cloves of garlic, minced
About 1 kg of finer and juicier stalks of celeriac
Two 400 g cans of peeled tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato paste
6 grains of spice
0.25 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 bay leaves
1 teaspoon of marjoram
1 tbsp Italian herb mixture (basil, oregano, thyme)
400 ml of white or red wine
Black pepper and sea salt to taste
Favorite pasta for serving
Preparation:
- In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat the butter and oil to high heat.
- Mix the oxtail pieces with flour so that they are coated with flour. Carefully pour into the pot and brown on all sides until nicely golden.
- Set the tail pieces aside. Cut the carrots into rounds, chop the onion and garlic and celery. Usually, about half of the stalk of celeriac is left in pieces about 5 cm long. Brown the vegetables in the oven for 5 minutes.
- Add the browned tail pieces to the vegetable and mix.
- Add wine. This dish is made with both white and red wine. With white wine, the food is a little lighter, but I believe that it is not bad with red wine either.
- Add tomato paste, marjoram, Italian herbs, spice, cinnamon, salt and black pepper. You can always add salt while cooking.
- Mix all the components and place the stew under the lid in the oven to simmer at 150 degrees C. Simmer for about 4 hours, in the meantime, make sure that the liquid does not evaporate too much. The liquid forms a nice, thick vegetable sauce.
- When the stew is ready, prepare the pasta. Boil it in plenty of salted water according to the manufacturer’s recommendations.
- When serving, put the stew on top of the pasta, and garnish with herbs.
Serve hot. Food gets better and better as it stands. Store food for 3-4 days at -4 degrees C.
Ready!!
