Oxtails and Rumba "Specialty" Meats

[The Knize]

Kind of a combined post. Our local Safeway seems to have started to carry on a very hit or miss, one item at a time, basis, Rumba meat products. Rumba pitches itself as "Food for the Soul" and seems to specialize in various beef and pork "cuts"--e.g., tripe, oxtails, sweetbreads, hearts, pig ears and feet (no chitterlings or brains that I see on the web page--perhaps found more often in dishes overseas than in the States. So far I have found tripe one day and oxtails another, although often there is nothing from Rumba on display. I would be very happy if this turned out not to be some random thing with that store.

Anyone have any experience with Rumba and/or know whether this is some expansion by Rumba into stores nationally, locally, or whatever. Seems like a heck of a niche to me! The prices seem very good.

The tripe seemed to be of good quality, although I think I needed to perhaps boil it with some baking soda. They seem to sell a pre-boiled version. The one I had was not!

Also, anyone have any particular oxtail recipes (or links to recipes or whatever) they really like. Cooks Illustrated, which is usually rather deficient when it comes to recipes for "these kinds" of meats seems to have a good one for oxtail soap. Our child person, who was from Trinidad, once made an oxtail and black-eyed pea dish that was a revelation, but I have not been able to find a recipe for that. There seem to be some other Caribbean recipes around. I wonder why oxtail would be particularly a Caribbean specialty?

 

[SiBurning]

I think oxtails is popular in certain circles for economic reasons. People tend to ignore it, so they tend to be cheap. That's good for the rest of us because it's great in a braise or stew--my second choice after short ribs, and even more flavorful. They do have a slightly stronger flavor, almost gamey, which is why it's often "blackened" or done with harsh & hot spices, like chili. It easily stands up to it, and even needs it by some standards. Not by mine! IMHO, it's very easy to make too strong an oxtail recipe. I like a simple braise over a trinity of vegetables, herbs, and some water or white (not red) wine. This way it's gentle enough to eat with just crusty bread and a salad, or over --my favorite--sliced... what's that corn thing?

 

[rockviper]

Throw the oxtail in a pressure cooker with a little water to soften up the meat and extract the goodness from the bones and such. Then use it all to make soup in a "normal" way.

PS. The part by the bum has the most flavour. At least, that we we told our manager on pot luck day.

 

[SiBurning]

Throw the oxtail in a pressure cooker with a little water so soften up the mean and extract the goodness from the bones and such. The use it all to make soup in a "normal" way.

PS. The part by the bum has the most flavour. At least, that we we told our manager on pot luck day.

It just occurred to me, the strong flavor is why it works so well in soup. That, plus it has all the necessary stuff to make good stock--meat, bones, and plenty of connective tissue.

 

[The Knize]

Good tips. I need to get a pressure cooker.

My understanding is that ribs were once considered "low class." What a difference a few decades makes!

 

[olschoolsteel]

I think oxtails is popular in certain circles for economic reasons.
SIBurning is onto something...

In the early 80s, growing up in Southern Illinois, my single mother would get oxtail and beef tongue for pennies a pound from a local meat packer. Meat in our household was rare but my mom found many ways to fix these. Back then no one wanted this "trash meat". I grew up on it without any issues. Now if you wanted to get it you will pay a premium for it. I tried to talk my wife into some but she is burned out on it and wouldn't have it, and I wasn't going to be the only one prepping and eating it. Anyway, when the kill truck comes to visit to put down one of my cows, and I decline the extra "trimmings", he will cut out the tongue, tail, heart, and liver for his own family. I honestly hope he enjoys them and it helps keep meat on his table.
And yes, what a difference a couple decades makes.

 

[olschoolsteel]

Also, I forgot to add. The reason oxtail may taste a bit strong is it a locomotion muscle that is being moved almost constantly. That fly swatter stays moving all day long. Even when they are laying down resting.

 

[SiBurning]

Fly swatter soup.

Do you top that with truffles?

 

[Slash McCoy]

In Belize, it's pigtail. It is sold pickled in brine, in 5 gallon buckets, and it keeps for months without refrigeration, so it is very popular in rural areas. Red beans and pigtail, stewed pigtail, rice and beans with pigtail, those are staple foods "back-a-bush". The tails are cut off the pigs on large pig farms in the U.S. and Canada, and they are exported to Belize and some other Caribbean countries. The main thing is to cook them soft. The bones even, should be soft, before you call them done. A pressure cooker is a big help.

Oxtail, same thing. Cook in a pressure cooker for best results. Oxtail and cabbage, oxtail in roux over rice, oxtail stew, it's all good. Me, I first just cook it in a pressure cooker with a little water for 45 minutes. Then it is clay for the sculptor. I usually make a dark roux, add a couple of beef boullion cubes, celery, onions, jalapenos, whatever, and finish cooking the oxtails in that. About an hour will do ya. Serve over jasmine rice. Great stuff!

Tripe? Make menudo, of course.

Beef heart? Makes a great soup, also good sausage if you add some fat and maybe some other meat or parts, and your favorite sausage seasoning. I don't do kidneys or liver. Ewwwww.

Cowfoot soup is popular in Belize and Guatemala. Elsewhwere in the Caribbean, too, I am told. Usually it is a clear broth with cassava, coco, (a root crop, has leaves like elephant ears) plantain, onion, okra, and recado, sometimes some jalapenos to perk it up a bit, and sometimes a yam or a potato. I have ate it but never cooked it.

The entire head of the cow is barbecued in Mexico and South Texas. Barbacoa de Cabeza is a popular weekend treat. Extraordinarily rich and flavorful. Quite addictive! Just pull some meat apart and wrap it up in a nice hot, fresh flour tortilla with some onion and cilantro. Good stuff.

Fajitas is NOT flour tacos. The word has been mis-used ever since "Tex-Mex" cooking became trendy. Fajitas are actually a particular cut of beef, also called "skirt steak". So there is NO SUCH THING as a "chicken fajita" LOL! Just like there are no "chicken rib-eyes". But anyway, this meat was not popular at all with the more financially comfortable classes, and so poor Mexicans figured out how to take this meat that the silly gringos didn't want, and make something extraordinary out of it. It would generally be served with flour, rather than corn tortillas, and so the association led to misinterpretation. Not sure what part of the cow they come from. But anyway, suddenly fajitas cost as much as sirloin, and sometimes could not and cannot not be found reliably, so substitutions were made, round, sirloin, whatever. Soon chicken was added to permissible ingredients in "fajitas" which now, if you ask 9 out of 10 Americans, are flour tortillas wrapped around beef or chicken or whatevah.

A lot of ethnic foods evolve from the use of discarded or unwanted parts of butchered animals by economically disadvantaged folks, and one way or another, they find ways to make it taste good enough to make you forget that it came from a part of the cow or pig or some wild critter that one doesn't ordinarily associate with fine dining. Can't eat hide, hair, horns, hooves, or teeth, but just about every other part of anything that has a face on it can be eaten. Most of us are too spoiled and sheltered to figure out what to do with those parts, or even acknowledge that they are good to eat. Like me and kidneys LOL! Ewwww.....

 

[olschoolsteel]

Fly swatter soup.

Do you top that with truffles?

Silly question. Tobasco of course!

 

[SiBurning]

gourmet fail

 

[hawgsquatch]

Also, I forgot to add. The reason oxtail may taste a bit strong is it a locomotion muscle that is being moved almost constantly. That fly swatter stays moving all day long. Even when they are laying down resting.

The harder the muscle works the better it tastes, and the tougher it is so that is why we stew and braise shanks, flanks, and tongues and cheeks n such. My mind has been going over corn slicey stuff and all I am coming up with is polenta maybe?

 

[ChefJohnBoy-ardee]

Sri Rachi then

Braised oxtails, yes please! Pity it is so expensive now. A good sear, deglaze with water for all I care, throw it into a pot with mire poix and simmer until it is done. Pull out the bones and enjoy. So good!

 

[YetiDave]

I sent this recipe to another member who tried it and said it was probably the best Oxtail dish he's tasted -

1kg oxtail
1/4 orange (peel and all)
1/3 cup Shaoxing wine - sherry is a common substitute for this I believe
2 spring onions
1 inch cube of ginger roughly smashed
3 cloves of garlic
3 star anise
3 dried chillis, snipped in half and seeds removed (depending on how hot the chillis are)
500ml beef stock/broth
1 tbsp dark brown sugar
3 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
1/3 cup water

Start by trimming excess fat and browning the oxtail in an oven proof pot with a lid. Pour the rendered fat out of the pan and add the Shaoxing wine, scraping up any burnt/caramelised bits then add all of the other ingredients and the browned oxtail. Put the lid on and put the pot in a preheated oven at 140C/290F for around 2.5 to 3 hours. Remove the oxtail pieces and put them in a bowl, cover and refrigerate overnight, then sieve/strain the sauce into a measuring jug or other container, cover and refrigerate overnight. The next day you should be able to skim the fat off the top of the (very jelly like by now) sauce and then add it back to a pot with the oxtail and cook for a further 1.5 to 2 hours, covered in the oven. I usually remove the oxtail before serving and thicken up the sauce with a little cornflour/cornstarch then pour it over the top and add a few chopped spring onions.

 

[SiBurning]

The harder the muscle works the better it tastes, and the tougher it is so that is why we stew and braise shanks, flanks, and tongues and cheeks n such. My mind has been going over corn slicey stuff and all I am coming up with is polenta maybe?

Thank you! Polenta it is.

 

[The Knize]

Good posts all. Thanks. The recipes look wonderful. I am still in the hunt for black-eyed peas and oxtails though. When I think about that dish I can taste it and I miss our former child care person so much. She was a wonderful lady.

No doubt less wealthy cultures tend to create fabulous food from less pursued meats, but I wondered why oxtails seemed to come up so often in Caribbean dishes. Clearly the Chinese do great things with them, too. Pigs tails sound like fun. I am a fan of pigs feet in most forms.

So no one knows anything about Rumba, eh? If it ends up that I have a steady source of their products, I'm going to have a lot of fun! Assuming the quality is good. I ate every bit of the tripe I made, but it seems a little strong. Absolutely could be my cooking technique which I am pleased to work on!

 

[Slash McCoy]

Good posts all. Thanks. The recipes look wonderful. I am still in the hunt for black-eyed peas and oxtails though. When I think about that dish I can taste it and I miss our former child care person so much. She was a wonderful lady.

No doubt less wealthy cultures tend to create fabulous food from less pursued meats, but I wondered why oxtails seemed to come up so often in Caribbean dishes. Clearly the Chinese do great things with them, too. Pigs tails sound like fun. I am a fan of pigs feet in most forms.

So no one knows anything about Rumba, eh? If it ends up that I have a steady source of their products, I'm going to have a lot of fun! Assuming the quality is good. I ate every bit of the tripe I made, but it seems a little strong. Absolutely could be my cooking technique which I am pleased to work on!

The only thing I use tripe for is menudo. But I think the same thing will apply. Wash it really good. Cut it up and wash some more. Pre-boil for 15 minutes with a pinch of baking soda in the water, drain, toss the water, rinse, and now add the final water and other ingredients for cooking proper. The first boil removes most of the rear end smell. With very aggressive seasoning, the end result can be pretty tasty and have an enticing aroma.

I am surprised nobody has mentioned scrapple or chitlins. I'll take my chitlins fried, with mustard and tabasco, please.

 

[The Knize]

The only thing I use tripe for is menudo. But I think the same thing will apply. Wash it really good. Cut it up and wash some more. Pre-boil for 15 minutes with a pinch of baking soda in the water, drain, toss the water, rinse, and now add the final water and other ingredients for cooking proper. The first boil removes most of the rear end smell. With very aggressive seasoning, the end result can be pretty tasty and have an enticing aroma.

I am surprised nobody has mentioned scrapple or chitlins. I'll take my chitlins fried, with mustard and tabasco, please.

Thanks. I do not think tripe necessarily needs aggressive seasoning at all. I'm really trying to replicate what I eat in Italy, which was really tripe in a fairly standard tomato sauce with some garlic and red pepper, I would say, but nothing more aggressive than most such Italian sauces. A "Northern Chinese dim sum shop" near where I live used to serve a wonderful tripe soup, which was really very mildly seasoned. (I have no idea why they stopped serving it. I think they sold a lot of it.) But I agree that a good menudo is a wonderous and aggressively spiced thing. I think the additional washing and boiling with baking soda will do the job.

I love scrapple and I would say it is available in virtually any grocery store in the Washington, DC area. Seems to show up less frequently than it used to on as a meat option on breakfast menus but still is sometimes there.

I do believe I have tried chitlins in about every form they come in, from authentic soul food in Baltimore to various Asian renditions. I am not squeemish about trying them and "would like to like them," I think, but I just do not. Not at all! To me there is always a smell factor to them. No dis to anyone who likes them. I respect the cuisine.

 

[The Knize]

So I went out and bought a pressure cooker today. The only one they had at the Target I went to. A six quart, T-fal brand. Aluminum. I am guessing I could have done better. I usually research the heck out of such purchases. This seems like a pretty substantial item, though. I am guessing stainless steel would be the better material. 6 quart seems to the about the right size. Storage is an issue, it seems to me.

Anyway, I expect to have some fun with this item. Those oxtails are in there now.

I also dropped by a local large Asian--really Chinese, I would say, although perhaps Korean--grocery called the Great Wall. Looked like maybe three or four different kinds of trip, including really good looking honey comb. I am a little afraid of the other kinds. Not sure what to do with them. Well-priced at less than the Rumba trip, which was only $3.99 an lb if I recall correctly. Also oxtail that at $6.29 or so an lb was more expensive than the Rumba oxtail. Also, some well-priced beef tongue, heart, and kidneys. Not sure the tongue looked so great, although I think maybe the tongue my mother used to get and "cook" was smoked. And if those were beef kidneys I do not think I want to get involved.

Just noticed two things in Slash McCoy's earlier post that I had skimmed over. First, <I don't do kidneys or liver. Ewwwww.> I can understand that about kidneys. I like, say, calf kidneys, and I am sure I would like, say, lamb kidneys, too, but I have to be in the right mood. I can understand the "ewwwww," maybe not so much from a guy who likes chitlins, but I still get it for sure. A fine calves liver, or even, say a young beef liver, which may even better as some calves liver can be too bland to me, cooked just right, and maybe in a nice sauce, is ambrosia to me. I can remember a calves liver in a white port wine sauce at nice Vermont restaurant from 30 years ago that is probably among the best ten dishes I have ever eaten. And, I like myself from fried chicken livers, or better some chopped liver, perhaps the "Queen" of Jewish deli and I am utterly enamoured with real Jewish deli.

The other thing I noticed was the location "New Orleans." Here I have to bow to you SM. If you say the chitlins are great in New Orleans, I will completely accept that as truth, no matter what my experience elsewhere. We were in NOLA in early July, and even being fully prepared for the food in NOLA to blow me away, it went beyond that!

 

[The Knize]

Just to leave a note in the record, I would not recommend this pressure cooker. This is solely because it is only 10 psi. Further research indicates that 15 psi is more the norm. I am having fun with it, but more pressure is faster they say.