Beautifully Braised Oxtail and Short Rib Pasta

Recipe First – Click Here –

This recipe is an amalgamation of a couple recipes, but the team at Serious Eats rarely misses; along with Kenji they are hands down my best resources. I have done braises a number of times and usually combine it with mashed potatoes or risotto. This time we decided to finish it in pasta and we were not disappointed. This is a high end restaurant quality dish that is great for leftovers, and will impress.

Roughly chop up our carrots, onion, celery, and garlic. They will be strained off after so no need to be too picky here unless you are working on your knife skills.

This really isn’t a very unique recipe. It is similar to most red wine braises you will see, but we make it so often that I thought it could be useful to someone.

I did use a strategy from Kenji’s Mexican Barbacoa recipe by searing oxtail at the beginning to get the deep meaty flavour, and not ‘tightening up’ the short rib from searing the outside. It is supposed to be the best of both worlds. I actually thought this was a standard part of this recipe and realized after that I had mixed up the two recipes. This also shows how similar recipes can be when using similar techniques. It will also seem very similar to beef stew and thats just how the cookie crumbles.

Salted and seared on all sides to create fond and flavour.

I decided to render the beef fat into tallow to use at a later date. Nice and easy; waste not, want not. Cookingcarguy non-secret – cooking fries or potatoes in beef tallow is amazing.

Once again, I will be leaving these in the braise and may use some of the meat, but my primary goal here is to create flavour,and the short-rib will be the primary meat.

Removed the meat and added carrots.

Added celery.

Added onions.

Brown tomato paste. Make sure not to let the sugars in the tomato burn.

Deglaze with a whole bottle of wine. The alcohol will all be cooked out, but adds to the complexity of the flavour by bringing out the alcohol soluble compounds. Here is a good article on the differences between water, fat, and alcohol soluble flavour compounds.

Add beef stock and bring back up to a simmer.

Add back in the seared oxtail and seasoned short ribs.

Nicole helped me make a cartouche:

From the team at theculinarypro.com, a cartouche is a parchment paper lid, also known as a false lid, used for covering the surface of a stew, sauce, or soup. It traps steam keeping stewed components submerged in liquid, reduces evaporation, and prevents a skin from forming on the surface of sauces.

Add to pre-heated oven at 300F for 3-4 hours.

Once finished, the meat will be falling off the bones and the smell is heavenly.

Reserve the meat, strain out the broth, and skim the excess fat off the top. I reduced 1 cup of brandy in the meantime. This is meant to thicken the final sauce as well as add more flavour depth.

Shred the meat, add it back to the broth, mix in the cooked pasta, add some wonderful parmesan, and fully coat the pasta.

I recommend that if you have not made this recipe before you should run out to the store, buy what you need, and get it done as soon as possible. The results should be a better than restaurant quality. Delicious meal.

Cole Rating: 10/10