Red Wine and Soy Sauce Oxtail

I’m a Taurus – one of those star signs who respond if you wave a red flag at them – or rather as Kikkoman did, issue a challenge.  Make a dish with Kikkoman soy sauce as the star ingredient – but it can’t be oriental.  Wow, take an iconic flavour and fuse it with another culture!

So, immediately I started thinking – what goes well with the gorgeous umami flavour of soy sauce?  I kept looking at the Basque region as they do big bold flavours [to paraphrase, the lovely Mr Gregg Wallace] so I trotted off to my local butchers and came up with Red wine and Soy Sauce Oxtail which is really rather good!

Firstly, this is a ‘home cook’ recipe, which means that you need to realise that you may need to add a little more or a little less of each ingredient – use your cheffy-sense.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 kg of oxtail chopped
• 1 and a half bottles of robust red wine [I used Cabernet Sauvignon but use what you have}
• 1 litre of chicken stock
• 2 lemons [plus a spare in case]
• Tablespoon of flour
• Large onion – finely chopped
• 15 cloves of garlic [peeled but not chopped]
• Big pinch of rosemary
• 1 tablespoon of Kikkoman soy sauce
• 25 ml port
• 1 teaspoon of nice clear honey
• Glug of oil

Recipe

• Add the oil to a large pot and heat before adding the chopped onion.  Saute.
• Put the flour into a plastic bag [I had a spare sandwich bag}, add the oxtail and shake
• When the oxtail is dusted, add it to the large pot and brown [the flour will help to thicken the sauce]. If you are gluten intolerant use gluten free flour and Kikkoman fantastic Gluten Free Soy Sauce.

 

• Once the oxtail has coloured, add about a tablespoon of Kikkoman Soy Sauce – you want to add depth of flavour then add the bottle of wine and half the stock.  The stock can then be added if the mixture seems to be drying out.

• Add the garlic, rosemary and simmer for about 5 minutes.  Taste!
• Leave it to cook on a low heat for about an hour.
• Keep checking – is the liquid still enough?  Do you need to add more soy sauce?  What about chicken stock?
• After about an hour, add 25ml port and continue to cook for another hour and a half.  Add more red wine or stock if it goes too dry.  Make sure it maintains its rich flavour by adding more Kikkoman Soy Sauce if needs be.

• Add a big teaspoon of honey [ideally strongly flavoured clear honey] and squeeze the juice of two lemons into the dish.  Cook for a final hour – or until the oxtail falls off the bone - cooking for longer if needs be.
• Taste before you serve, make sure that you can taste a mild sweetness [honey], umami depth [Kikkoman Soy Sauce], rich flavour [red wine and oxtail] and hint of citrus [lemon].  It is good to get the balance but if your pallet leans towards one flavour, by all means indulge it.
• Serve with mashed potato to catch the juice.

Hope you like this as much as I do

Lxx

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