When dinner comes knocking Oxtail stew makes a hearty and portable meal

loading...

Months had gone by since I had seen my friends and here we were in the dead of winter. The time was perfect for a soiree. Except it wasn’t. When I called with an invitation for dinner at our house, my girlfriend answered the phone with a low, scratchy, stuffy voice. She and her husband had been nursing colds for weeks, she said between sniffles, and, while they were on the upswing, they did not feel like going out in the frigid temperatures.

“How about I bring dinner to your house then?” I asked.

Are there any better words in the middle of winter when you aren’t feeling well? Or when you’re stuck in the house with the kids? Or when you’re aren’t comfortable driving on slippery roads? Or when you’re tired from working a hard day? We all know someone who fits into one of those categories. And all of us fit into the category of liking to be fed good food.

My friends were sick and not only did I want to see them, I wanted to feed them. I didn’t need Superman’s cape or Xena’s armor to pull off this feat. I needed my white kitchen apron.

But first I needed to call David Ziff, the real superhero of meals to go. David lives in New York City and his job for the last 25 years has been to make fabulous food in his own kitchen, pack it up and take it to dining rooms in Park Avenue skyscrapers.

In the summer, David lives in Maine in a modest log cabin overlooking Penobscot Bay. Last summer, David invited me to a luncheon he made for a mutual friend of ours who was elderly and too lame to visit David’s cabin. David packed a box with lobster stew and flat bread, plates, silverware, napkins and wine – and off we went. The meal was every bit as perfect as if we had been in David’s own kitchen.

Right down to the cardboard box in which I packed all my supplies, David was my model for the meal I would prepare for my friends. “Make sure it’s comfort food,” David advised over the phone. “And one dish only – something that can be heating up in the kitchen while you’re having drinks and appetizers with your friends in another room. How about oxtail stew?”

Oxtail stew?

It sounded exotic. But very scary.

It’s neither, said David. It’s easy to make and, as far as comfort food goes, it’s at the top of the list, less common than chicken soup but richer and more succulent than beef stew.

Because it’s an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink dish, oxtail stew seems to have rustic origins. But legend has it that during the French Revolution, a French noble asked for the tail and made the first oxtail dish. The stew may hail from France or from England, but oxtail recipes from around the world, including Africa, Brazil, Vietnam, Hawaii, Italy and Ireland, attest to its presence in many cultures.

Oxtail used to come from oxen and, before the noble’s story came into circulation, was considered throwaway food, much the same way lobster was once considered the hot dog of seafood. Also like lobster, oxtail has come up in the world and can be found on menus in gourmet restaurants.

Markets in our area don’t always carry oxtail because it’s not in high demand here. But every butcher I spoke to was willing to order it for me. It costs just under $4 a pound and comes already cut into 3-inch medallions with a center bone. There’s not a lot of meat but what’s there is tasty and, after cooking, it falls handily off the bone.

A day before the dinner, I dredged the oxtail in flour and braised the pieces in hot olive oil. I added browned onions, carrots, celery, garlic, as well as red wine, canned tomatoes, thyme, bay leaves and chicken bouillon. When David heard I was also serving an arugula salad with orange slices, he told me to add the orange peels to the broth. “It’s very Provencal to do that,” he said.

The most important work of all was also the easiest: time. The stew had to stew, which it did for the afternoon. After about an hour, I added red potatoes and parsnips.

That day, an aroma so exquisite and intoxicating filled our house. I wasn’t even the person the stew was meant to comfort but the full-bodied perfume made me think of dark, medieval kitchens lit by torches and wood-fired ovens.

After refrigerating it over night, I skimmed the fat off the top of the mixture. Oxtail is excessively fatty meat but underneath those pudding-like globs, a glossy, gelatinous goo appeared. When I recoiled with confusion (I was expecting to see broth), David explained that the gelatin comes from the collagen in the bones and, like the small dabs of fat I couldn’t get to, adds robust flavor and an elegant sheen. When heated, the gelatin would dissolve and yield the broth I had anticipated.

That evening, I arrived at my friends’ house with a boxful of dinner. I put the stew in the oven and went to the next room where we toasted the night with sparkling wine and dipped jicama sticks into white-bean puree with garlic and cognac. When the stew was steamy hot, I called the group to the table and we savored each bite, sometimes using large chunks of French bread to soak up the luscious broth of jeweled burgundy hues that seemed to come right out of the Renaissance.

The sweet and tart citrus of the salad added a sunny finish to the meal, and two creamy cheeses with red wine were the perfect final flavor. We held onto our wine to dunk almond-orange biscotti and to complement dark chocolates from See’s Candies.

I suspect the others slept as well as I did that night, nourished by the magic that only a stew can offer and fed by a night of friendship.

Luckily, oxtail stew has a long shelf life. The next day, in the spirit of the project, I delivered the remaining stew to a co-worker so he and his family could have a night off from cooking.

“It’s just a beef stew really,” David said when I called to report the success. “Next time, leave out the potatoes and try it over buttered pasta. It’s a contrapuntal thing – the rich beef and clean pasta. It tastes rich and complete and it’s good for you.”

Even better, I thought, if you ring the doorbell with the ready-to-heat stew in your arms.

White Beans with Roasted Garlic and Cognac

Serves 6 as an appetizer.

2 cans cannelli beans

1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons of cognac

1 head of garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

juice of half a lime

1/2 cup chopped parsley

salt and pepper to taste

Coat outside skin of garlic with olive oil. Place in a small baking dish and add 1/3 cup of cognac. Roast garlic at 350 for 45 minutes or until soft. Let cool for 15 minutes or until cool enough to handle. Squeeze garlic cloves from papery skin. Discard skin. Trim hard ends off garlic.

Drain and rinse beans. Combine with garlic, remaining cognac, salt and lime in food processor. Blend until very smooth. Add parsley and pulse three times to mix. Transfer to serving dish and serve with jicama sticks, sliced carrots or crackers.

David Ziff’s Oxtail Stew

Serves 6

4 to 5 pounds of oxtail, cut into medallions about 3-inches thick

6 tablespoons olive oil

3 large carrots

6 ribs of celery

3 large onions

5 cloves garlic

3 parsnips

8-10 baby potatoes

2 cups red white

14.5-ounce can plum tomatoes

orange peel, sliced with rind removed

2 teaspoons fresh thyme

beef or chicken stock, as needed

salt and pepper to taste

flour for dredging

Roughly chop carrots, celery, onions and garlic. On stove, heat 3 tablespoons of olive in a large, heavy pot, and brown all the vegetables but garlic. When veggies are browned, add garlic and cook for 2 more minutes. Remove vegetables. Add remaining olive oil and heat again. Dredge oxtail in flour and braise pieces on all sides.

Add cooked vegetables, tomatoes, wine, thyme, salt and pepper. If liquid does not cover contents, add just enough broth to cover. Bring to a simmering boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Place wax paper over contents and seal around sides. Cover with lid and simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Roughly chop parsnips into large piece and quarter potatoes. Add and simmer for another 45 minutes.

Allow stew to cool completely before removing wax paper and placing in refrigerator over night. Before serving, use a spoon to skim fat from top. Discard fat. Heat soup and serve with crusty bread.

Orange-Almond Biscotti

Makes 30 biscotti. Adapted from “Vegan Planet” by Robin Robertson.

1/3 cup butter, softened

2/3 cup of sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups flour

11/2 teaspoon baking powder

11/2 teaspoons grated orange zest

1/2 cup slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Mix in the flour and baking powder. Stir in the orange zest and almonds. Chill for 10 minutes.

Divide chilled dough and roll each half out onto a slab about 2-inches thick. Place the slabs on lightly oiled baking sheets and flatten slightly. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and reduce the oven temperatures to 275 degrees.

Let the slabs cool for 10 minutes, then cut each slab into 1/2-inch-wide slices. Place the sliced biscotti on their sides on an ungreased baking sheet and bake until crisp and dry, 8-10 minutes. Let cool completely before storing in an airtight container, where they will keep for several days.