oxtail ideas?

[Supnut]

I'm saving bones and what nots for some beef stock
I purchased a pack of oxtail to try that's already vacuum bagged.

Not real sure what to do with it but I'd like to keep it in the bag and sous vide it and then hopefully the meat will fall off the bone and I can reserve both the bag juices and the bones to contribute to my stock later this week or next.

That leaves me needing suggestions. Probably end up with some rather plain meat so a nice sauce makes sense. I also have a few cans of full fat coconut cream in the cabinet I haven't tried using yet. It would be cool if I could incorporate that somehow.

Suggestions?

On a side note a scored a pair of lamb shanks at the store today for under $3 each as they were about to expire. The water bath was already warm and waiting when I got home.

[PatrickH]

Oxtail has a lot of connective tissue like the shanks, correct? If so, I'm not sure that Sous Vide would be the appropriate method to break down that connective tissue. I would all depend on the hold temperature. I would suggest braising.

[Supnut]

Sous vide is supremely ideal for those types of tissue and the hold temperature can be anything you want it to be within reason.

I have now managed to ruin two packages of oxtail.

I got home a week or so ago to find the power had been out all day and had just come back on. I have no idea how long the meat was sitting around in an unheated crock pot with no power so I had to toss it.

Take two involved me dropping the probe for the PID controller into the crock pot, turning on the PID and then plugging the crock pot into the wall NOT the PID. I awoke the next morning to find the plastic had busted open and the meat was sitting in a full crock pot of boiling water.

On the plus side the meat had fallen off all the bones so the connective tissue was deffinately gone.

No collagen or connective tissue is going to survive 24H at 135F followed by 48H at 158F.
It will be cooked into submission.

Not super sure what I'm doing with it afterwards but I think I can probably shred it like BBQ and add some sauce.

[musclehead]

My brother made a coconut stew with oxtail, it was very tasty. He fried onions with garlic, chilli, mushrooms, peppers, whole spices and some dried Lebanese herbs. The dried herbs give the stew a unique flavour, I wasn't expecting it to be nice but I was pleasantly surprised.

Just cook it low and slow in the coconut milk with flavouring you like.