Oxtail! A dish that is honestly very forgiving because of the long cook time. Everything usually tastes great after it has been cooked low and slow for hours. This is no different, the oxtail is tender flavourful and I like mine with a slight bit of heat so you can adjust to taste. Of course Oxtail cooked in this way is very Jamaican and so I have served it up with rice and peas and a very simple coleslaw. I don’t usually add cornstarch to mine because I love the looser gravy finish but a tablespoon or cornstarch can be mixed with liquid and added in to finish!
Total cook time for me was about 4 hours!
Jamaican Oxtail – Slow Cooked, Fall off the Bone Oxtail in a Rich Gravy
Ingredients
Marinade
- 3 pounds oxtail cleaned
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 3 scallions finely diced
- 2 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon all spice
- 1 tablespoon garlic minced
- 2 tablespoon ginger grated
Stew
- 3 tablespoons oil
- 1/3 up brown sugar
- 1 small onion finely diced
- 4 green scallions finely diced
- 1-2 habanero finely diced
- 1 tablespoon garlic and ginger minced
- 3 thyme sprigs
- 2 teaspoons all spice or 10 all spice berries
- 2 tablespoon ketchup
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon worcestershire
- 2 carrots diced
- 1 red bell pepper diced
- 1 green bell pepper diced,
- 1 1/2 cups cooked lima beans
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch to thicken Optional, I omit this
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Marinate Oxtail
- Wash your oxtail with water and lime or lemon juice. Squeeze lime or lemon juice over your oxtail, pour some water over it and rinse them off.
- Place your cleaned oxtail in a bowl, season with salt and let sit for 5 minutes. Follow with the rest of the marinade ingredients and mix well so all the oxtail is properly coated. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight.
Make Oxtail
- When ready to cook, remove your oxtail from the fridge and set out for about 20 minutes. On a large dutch oven place 2-3 tablespoons of oil and pan sear your oxtail on both sides and remove them form the pot.
- In the same pot add your brown sugar and stir constantly on medium heat until the sugar melts and darkens but does not burn.
- When the sugar starts to darken, add your onion, scallion garlic and ginger, and habanero and sautee for 2 minutes.
- Add your oxtails back into the pot and add your ground all spice or all spice berries, thyme sprigs, ketchup and soy sauce and top with water until the oxtail is submerged. Taste and season with a tiny bit more salt if necessary. Remember, the sauce will reduce significantly so it should not be overly salty at this stage. You should taste salt just so that when it reduced, it will be well seasoned.
- Bring to simmer on the stove then place in an oven, preheated to 325 degrees for about 3 hours to 3 and a half hours.
- After 3 and a half hours, you can bring out of the oven, skim some of the fat that is on top and add your chopped carrots, peppers and fold in cooked lima beans and return to the oven for another hour. When you add your veggies, the oxtail should be tender but not quite fall off the bone yet.
- After another hours in the oven, skim the fat, and enjoy with sides like rice and peas and colslaw.
