Rabo de Toro
Oxtail braised slowly in red wine with onions, carrots, tomatoes and bay until the meat falls from the bone in a thick, glossy sauce.
Photograph credit: Rabo de toro-Estofado (01) (image of rabo de toro on Wikidata Q64577075) by Tamorlan · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Where This Goes Wrong
Chill the stew overnight to make skimming the fat easy.
Use a wine you would drink.
Serve with potatoes.
Cooking Rabo de Toro
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Heat the oven to 160°C / 320°F (140°C / 285°F fan). Toss the oxtail with the flour, salt and pepper. Brown in the oil in batches for 15 minutes. Transfer to a casserole.
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Cook the onions, carrots, leek and garlic in the same pan for 10 minutes. Stir in the tomato purée for 1 minute.
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Pour in the wine and bring to a boil, scraping the pan. Add to the casserole with the stock, bay leaves and thyme.
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Cover and braise for 3 hours until the meat falls from the bone.
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Lift out the oxtail, skim the fat, and reduce the sauce if thin. Return the meat and serve.
Why It Works
It is the classic stew of Cordoba, and it is built around a bullfighter's tail, although today it is made with oxtail from cattle. The meat is gelatinous and rich, and it demands a slow braise. After 3 hours, it will fall away from the bone at a touch, and the sauce will be thick, dark and glossy from the collagen.
Browning comes first. Dust the oxtail pieces in seasoned flour and brown them well in olive oil, in batches, until deeply coloured on every side. It takes about 15 minutes. Don't crowd the pan. Crowding steams the meat and robs the sauce of its colour.
In the same pot, cook onions, carrots, leeks and garlic for 10 minutes, then add tomato purée, a bottle of full-bodied red wine, bay leaves, thyme and enough stock to cover. Bring to a boil, return the oxtail, cover, and braise in a 160°C / 320°F oven for 3 hours.
Lift out the meat, skim the fat from the top of the sauce, and reduce it for 10 minutes if it is thin. Return the meat and serve with chips, potatoes or rice. The dish tastes better the next day.
Leftovers, Reheating and Keeping
Keeps in the fridge for 4 days and freezes for up to 3 months.
If You're Missing Something
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Serving Rabo de Toro
- Chips
- Mashed potato
- Rioja
- Crusty bread
Rabo de Toro Nutrition Facts
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (most of the energy comes from foods with no recorded source). Why some recipes have none.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked.
First published ; last changed .
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