Here I am with a new recipe of a cut I really like: the beef tail 🙂

Yes, I use to like what maybe most of people don’t buy 😀 but this cut is really great, and it has such a great and intense flavor that few other cuts of the animal can match with it in flavor 🙂 moreover, it has a good price too.

I already shown long ago the recipe of “Coda alla Vaccinara“, which is made with tomato sauce. In this case instead I simmered the tail in a good dark Bavarian beer. More Bavarian dark beer styles can be chosen for this recipe: a Doppelbock is a great choice, but also a Dunkelweizen or a Dunkel work well (Ayinger beers are my favorite choice, but for example also the smoked beers Schlenkerla and Spezial can give a very particular and nice result, but also other dark beers will work nicely).

I already did this recipe few times, and it was always great 🙂

Let’s see what we need.

 

INGREDIENTS (4 people):

• 1 beef tail, about 1,3-1,5 Kg
• 0,5 l of dark beer (read above)
• 2 carrots
• 2 onions
• 2 ribs of celery
• 50 g of lardo
• 1 tablespoon of tomato concentrate
• some fresh rosemary and sage
• 1-2 bay leaves
• 2 cloves
• flour, 1 level tablespoon
• freshly ground black pepper
• salt
• some butter (optional)

 

1. First cut the tail into pieces, than take a large pan, melt the lardo and then brown the meat on all the sides, at high heat.
2. When the meat is well browned take it out, set the heat lower and add the vegetables, peeled and chopped into pieces, and keep cooking until they are soft. When they are soft add the flour and stir until it’s completely absorbed. Then put back the meat in the pan.
3. Now set the heat higher again and add the beer. Add also the tomato concentrate (diluted in some beer), the herbs and the cloves. When the beer starts to boil set the heat at the minimum, season with some salt and let it simmer for at least 3 hours long. If needed add some broth during the time while it’s simmering (I never needed). I use to turn the pieces of tail every about 30 minutes.
4. When you see that the meat is well cooked and soft, take out the pieces of tail and then pass the sauce through a sieve/strainer (in this way you also easily remove the cloves and the herbs), then set the heat higher and reduce the sauce until thicker enough.
5. Then put back the pieces of tail in the reduced sauce, season with freshly ground black pepper, some more salt if needed (taste it), and if you want you can add also some few pieces of butter (not too much) to make the sauce even smoother.
6. Serve it, and enjoy 🙂 you can pair it with mashed potatoes, or also with a good polenta 🙂 and a good Bavarian beer, of course! 🙂

 

And if something remains, you can remove carefully the meat from the bones and you can make a very delicious dish of pasta 😉 maybe with some Pecorino cheese on it 🙂 like in the photo below:

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Products used:

Beef: Angus from “Terra Pannonia” farms

Polenta: “farina di Storo”

Beers: Ayinger Celebrator, Ayinger Altbairisch Dunkel