Slow and steady wins the race.

I started cooking for Tuesday on Sunday. But don’t freak – Jamie doesn’t have a 48 hour slow cook recipe. But cool if he did huh?

Gnocchi with Braised Oxtail

I browned some oxtail (which is pretty much the same as osso bucco meat) in my oven proof pot then added finely chopped & diced celery, onion, carrot and leek and sweated til soft then added ½ bottle of white wine, some crushed fennel seeds, finely chopped dried cranberries (which were a substitute for juniper berries, which I could not find anywhere), some cinnamon, dried chilli, S&P, tomato puree and two tins of plum tomatoes, stirred it all together, put the lid and put it into the oven for 3.5 hours.

Then I put it in the fridge til Tuesday night and when I got home from work, I put it back in the oven for an hour to reheat it and soften it all up, then I pulled the meat of the bones (well it had kind of all fallen off anyway – perfection - so I was really just making sure I’d removed all the bones from the stew), then I added a sprinkling of oregano and kept it on a low heat, bubbling away while I made the gnocchi.

So with the gnocchi, I decided I would use the mouli this time and it definitely worked a lot better than it did last time, but I have to say my gnocchi overall has got worse. They don’t fall apart or explode when I put them in the water, but they don’t really hold their shape once they hit the plate. But I guess that doesn’t really matter, coz they’re just going straight into to my tummy anyway… I did decide to make them smaller this time thought, so they were kind of mini gnocchi, which I think looked better.

Once the gnocchi was done spooned the stew into a bowl, put the gnocchi on top then garnished with some burnt butter sage leaves and parmesan. It was the richest stew I’ve eaten in a while. Not in a bad way at all, but I could just taste the richness of the meat. But tender? You bet. The meat was so soft and juicy it was sensational. Slow and steady definitely wins this race.

Xx