Roman-Style Braised Oxtails (Coda Alla Vaccinara)

Coda alla Vaccinara is a typical dish born in Rome where the Vaccinari (those who butchered the cows) lived. The cuts needed for this dish are one of the best of offal pieces - a tail.

Usually 2 big pieces of tail are a good amount for each person.

The preparation takes long time but it is worth of it.

This is what we need:

• Oxtails
• 500g Tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 1 carrot
• some celery (I have it frozen because I like to preserve it like that)
• olive oil
• 0,5 dl of white wine
• salt
• pepper

Chop the onion, celery and carrot in small pieces. Take a big and deep pot and with some olive oil fry the vegetables.

Couple of minutes are enough because we still need to add the tail, otherwise they burn.

Add the tail and let it fry couple of minutes on both sides. Pour the wine and let it evaporate. Spice the tail with salt and pepper (an option would be to add also a little bit of hot chili).

Add now the tomato sauce and add some water until you cover all the meat.

Let it cook with low heat for at least 3 or 4 hours. If the sauce is getting thick and the meat is not under the sauce any more add some water to cover the meat while cooking. You can understand that the meat is ready when is really soft and it comes off from the bone easily. At this point you don't need to add water anymore. Let the sauce thicken a while until it gets nice structure for the serving.

Serve and enjoy!

Note: Usually there is quite much of sauce left so you can use that on pasta, it's really good!