Stew (if done right) is the ultimate comfort food. My friend Alana kindly taught and shared this recipe which her Grandma has made for years. It’s so special to be able to share a recipe with so much history.

This recipe takes 30 minutes to prepare and then 4 hours in the oven so you need to be super prepared in advance if you don’t want to eat dinner at midnight! I’ll provide some suggestions below for cooking this in the slow cooker too.

• 12- 15 oxtails
• flour for coating
• 50 gram of butter
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 3 onions, quartered
• 1 packet of oxtail soup
• 2 cups beef stock
• 3 bay leaves
• pasley to garnish
• cornflour to thicken

Serve with mashed potatoes and peas.

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius

1. Coat oxtails in flour.
2. Heat half the butter in a pan and pan fry the oxtails to seal. Remove from pan.
3. In the same pan, heat the remainder of the butter and add the garlic and onion and allow to soften. Don’t brown.
4. Place in a casserole dish with made up oxtail soup, beef stock, bay leaves and the sealed oxtails.
5. Ensure that your meat is covered in the stock.
6. Cook for 4 hours or until the meat is tender and easily comes from the bone.
7. Once cooked, strain the stock and mix with some cornflour mixed with 1 tbsp of cornflour. Add this to the gravy and simmer to thicken.
8. Garnish with some parsley and serve with mashed potatoes and peas.

If you’re wanting to do this in a slow cooker then complete steps 2 and 3 above and then put all ingredients into a slow cooker (except the parsley and cornflour). Put on low for 8 hours. At the end of the 8 hours remove all ingredients and add in 1tbsp of cornflour mixed with water and place your slow cooker on high until the sauce reduces. Garnish with some parsley and serve with mashed potatoes and peas.

Enjoy X