Sour Oxtail Braise

Name: Sour Oxtail Braise
Ingredients: 6 green bird’s eye chillies, chopped; 100 g yams, peeled and cut into 3-cm cubes; 5 garlic cloves, chopped; 5 red eschalots, chopped; salt and freshly ground pepper to taste; 8 cups fresh chicken stock; 5 tablespoons fish sauce; 1 kg oxtail, trimmed of fat; 4-cm piece galangal, chopped; 2 cups tamarind juice; 3 tablespoons coriander leaves; 3 red eschalots, finely sliced and fried until golden brown; 6 long red chillies, seeded; 6 tablespoons palm sugar; 2 hearts of lemon grass, crushed; 5 kaffir lime leaves, sliced; 1 tablespoon chopped turmeric

Preparation info

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Simply Asian

By Neil Perry

Published 2000

About

The sourness of the tamarind cuts the richness of the oxtail beautifully here. This melt-in-the mouth dish is even better made the day before, refrigerated overnight to allow the flavours to develop, and then reheated.

Ingredients

Spice Paste

6 long red chillies, seeded
6 green bird’s eye chillies, chopped
5 red eschalots, chopped

Stew
Gluten-free

Method

In a mortar with a pestle, pound the chillies and salt to a rough paste. Add eschalots, garlic and turmeric and continue to pound, then add lime leaves, lemon grass, and galangal and pound to a fine paste.

Put the oxtail into a large pot and add the spice paste, tamarind juice, chicken stock, palm sugar and fish sauce. Bring to the boil and then reduce heat to a gentle simmer. After 2 h