Oxtail: What It Is, And What To Do With It - The Kitchn

Home » What Is An Oxtail Come From » Oxtail: What It Is, And What To Do With It - The Kitchn

Maybe your like

  • Skills
  • Ingredients
  • Meat
Oxtail: What It Is, And What To Do With ItKathryn HillKathryn HillKathryn Hill is a former contributor to The Kitchn.published Dec 2, 2008SavefacebookpinterestemailPage URLcommentsWe independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
Rigatoni pasta topped with rich meat sauce and grated cheese on a plate, with a block of cheese in the background.
(Image credit: Sara Kate Gillingham)

I was watching Iron Chef: Battle Oxtail with my partner the other night, and he turned to me and asked, “What’s oxtail?” This inspired me to write a post on this delicious but relatively unknown cut of meat.

Oxtail is the tail of a cow. In olden days, it came from the tail of an ox, but now it comes from the tail of a cow of either sex.

The tail is skinned and cut into sections; each section has a tailbone with some marrow in the center, and a bony portion of meat surrounding the tail. The meat is gelatinous, and is best used for stocks, soups, and braises. It’s common in Italian and Korean cuisine to see oxtail used as an ingredient.

Oxtail requires a long time to cook since it’s so bony and fatty; this is the perfect braising meat. At one point, oxtail was considered a part of the animal that only poor people ate, due to its high fat content and long cooking time. This made it cheap. However, as gourmands discovered oxtail in recent years, the prices went up.

Here are some recipes to try: Oxtail Braised in Red Wine (The Greedy Gourmet) Jamaican Oxtail Stew (Food in Jamaica) Coda alla Vaccarina – a famous Italian dish. (Apple Pie, Pastis, & Pâté) Chinese Braised Oxtail Stew (Sunday Night Dinner)

Read the commentsFiled in:ingredientmeat

More to Love from The Kitchn

Tag » What Is An Oxtail Come From