Monday, July 16, 2012

Father's Oxtail

At my house, most of the time my mom cooks dinner, but every once in a while Master Chef Hsu (my dad) will make an appearance in the kitchen. Up until maybe last year, my dad's specialty was noodles.. But last year, he ventured out to all sorts of things, fish head soup, curry chicken, braised pork belly, and my favorite of all, braised oxtail. My dad was in the Philippines for the past year on business and I would always crave this comfort food. My mom didn't have the recipe and my brother only had a failed attempt at transcribing it last summer. After an entire week of nagging him about his delicious oxtail dish, daddy walked me through the process. I'm so glad I have this recipe to share now! It's a nice change from the yummy but common way of cooking oxtail which is in soup.
Father's Braised Oxtail

Ingredients
2 star anise
3 slices of ginger 
1 tsp peppercorn
2 stalks green onion quartered
2-3lbs oxtail
1/4 cup of michu 
2 tsp salt
1 stick of celery quartered
2 habenaro peppers stems cut
10 cups of water
1/4 cup dark soy sauce 
Dash of sugar
3 tsp light soy sauce
1 tsp dashi
1 tbs sesame oil
1/2 tsp cracked pepper
3 Carrots sliced

Directions:
1. Boil water in a large pot add star anise ginger and peppercorn green onion
2. Marinate oxtail in michu and salt let sit for 10 minutes
3. Once the pot comes to a roaring boil place the oxtails into the pot. Stir and cook for 1 minute just until the meat is no longer red.
4. Drain the water, keeping all the other ingredients and transfer to a ceramic pot.
5. Place oxtail evenly in a ceramic pot with celery and habenaro peppers and add 10 cups of water or enough to cover all the meat.
6. Add soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, cracked pepper and dashi, bring to a boil on high heat
7. Reduce heat to low and cook for 1.5 hours. Remove the blood/impurities from the top.
8. Add carrots and cook for another 15 minutes.
9. Garnish with Worchestire vinegar!

4 comments:

  1. that looks delicious! what is michu though??? do you think this can be slow-cookered?

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    Replies
    1. Michu is Rice Wine (cooking wine).. I usually marinate meat with it for a little to remove any signs of gaminess. I bet you could use a slow cooker, it will probably make the meat ULTRA tender! :]

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  2. What is dark soy sauce and can it be substituted for regular soy sauce? Do you have a brand you buy that you can recommend?

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