There’s a stillness to this time of year. We wrap up and bed down to avoid the cold weather. What we want most of all is a warm and filling meal, something to reinvigorate both mind and body: a pot of winter vegetables or meat, slowly bubbling away for hours on the stove – a stew.
If you were presented with a whole oxtail to cook, you might find yourself a little confused. It’s certainly a strange cut if your usual bovine encounters are limited solely to steak. But there is, I think, no better cut of meat for a stew. With enough time, the tough but flavoursome meat falls apart into a broth given depth and body by the bones. Inelegant perhaps, but delicious. The chicken livers in the recipe are a vestige of an earlier poultry-based experiment. Although the chicken breast I used in that was far too flavourless to ever be worth putting in a stew, the livers – finely chopped and dispersed throughout the sauce, gave it a great meaty and moreish quality.
The quintessential winter stew tends to be rather meat-heavy, leaving our vegetarian and vegan friends feeling bereft. This second recipe, for a winter-warming plantain stew shows that you can still pack a punch with the myriad of ingredients we are lucky to have at our fingertips.
The plantain is a variant of the common “sweet” banana, resembling overgrown versions of their cousins. The green, unripe form are blandly starchy – no more interesting than a potato. But when ripened, their skin pockmarked with black spots, the firm flesh has a deliciously familiar, though slightly more savoury, banana flavour. It provides the uplift to this Jamaican jerk-inspired dish of beans and root vegetables.
While we’re on the subject of beans I have become a recent convert to the “cook from dry” method espoused by chefs such as Kenji Lopez. You forgo the usual pre-soak in exchange for a longer cooking time. Not only is this a lifesaver to those of us incapable of remembering to soak beans the night before, but the beans are vastly more flavoursome. The lack of a pre-soak does make them a little tougher on our digestive systems, though, so you can still pre-soak if you’re of a sensitive disposition. But don’t substitute for canned beans. I’d rather have a flatulent kick in my step the next day than eat that plain, sulphurous mush.
Slow-cooked oxtail with chicken livers and red wine
When buying oxtail, make sure you get a decent mix of the meaty, fist-sized body-end and the finger-sized bony parts. Don’t be cowed by a butcher who tries to palm you off with the meat-less end pieces.
(Serves 4)
Vegetable oil
1½ kg of oxtail (a mix of the meaty and bony bits)
2 large onions
4 cloves garlic
¾ tsp table salt
½ tsp black pepper
½ bottle red wine
2 cans chopped plum tomatoes
200g chicken livers
2 aubergines
3 large tbsp Greek yoghurt
2 tsp dijon mustard
Start by browning off the oxtail. Pour alittle oil into a casserole dish and bring to a high heat. Add in the pieces of oxtail in batches taking care not to overcrowd the dish. Turn them regularly to ensure an even browning, thenset aside.
Top up the dish with a little more oil, turn the heat down to medium and add the chopped onion, garlic, black pepper and salt. Cook for 10 minutes until the onions are browned. Return the meat to the dish together with the tomatoes. Finely chop the chicken livers and add them, then pour over the wine, cover and simmer for 2hours.
Chop the aubergine into spears as long as your thumb, but slightly thicker. Add these to the dish after 2 hours and cook for a further hour.
Finally, just before serving, stir in the yoghurt and mustard. The aubergines will have softened to nothing, soaking up the juices while the meat will be falling off the bone.
Winter-warmer plantain stew
I roast the parsnips and sweet potato separately here for the same reason we brown meat before adding to astew: it greatly improves the flavour andtexture.
(Serves 4)
Vegetable oil
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp ground allspice
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1 scotch bonnet chilli
3 cloves garlic
Thumb-sized piece of ginger
2 large onions, diced
½ to ¾ tsp table salt
200g dried kidney beans
3 sweet potatoes
4 parsnips
100g unsalted peanuts
1 can coconut milk
2 yellow plantains (or large green bananas)
Handful of coriander, chopped
In a large saucepan, warm up a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil over a medium heat. Add in the ground spices followed by the finely chopped chilli, garlic and ginger. Stir for about aminute then add the onion and the salt. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally until the onion has softened.
Pour in the kidney beans, along with a litre of water. Bring everything to a boil, then cover and simmer gently. The beans will take a long time to cook, about 1½-2 hours.
Meanwhile, prepare the root vegetables by peeling and chopping them roughly into conker-sized chunks. Toss them in a little oil and roast at 240C/460F/gas mark 9 for about 20 minutes. The edges will be deeply brown, almost blackened by this point – not so pretty on the eye, but full offlavour.
Reduce the oven temperature to 180C/350F/gas mark 4 and toast the peanuts for 6 minutes. Set aside and once cool, chop them roughly.
Check on the beans after 90 minutes – they will have plumped up and should be completely soft once done. Keep checking every 10 or 15 minutes if they still have any firmness.
Once the beans are cooked, stir in the can of coconut milk. Slice the plantains in half lengthways and then into four pieces. Add to the bean medley and cook for 5-10 minutes depending on the ripeness of your plantains. You’re aiming for the texture of a ripe banana.
Stir in the roasted parsnips and sweet potatoes, then top with a sprinkling of the chopped peanuts andcoriander.
