One of the dishes I cooked on Saturday night was a small bowl of ox-tail stew. There was some left and three days latter it was perfectly unctuous.

The stew itself was very simple to make. A small pack of ox-tail pieces from Wards was all that I needed. The rest came from the cupboard.

I fried off the pieces of ox-tail in olive oil and added a chopped onion, carrot and garlic and fried it off some more. At that point I could have stirred in a spoon-full of flour but I forgot and just tipped in a half bottle of red wine. There were some pieces of chopped tomatoes on the side so I threw those in as well and then seasoned with salt and pepper. That was all left on a low heat for three hours until the meat was falling away from the bone. I boiled off some of the sauce before we ate it.

There were four pieces of ox-tail left and I finished them off this evening warming them up slowly in a pan on the hob. By the time they were heated through the sauce had turned into a dark, almost black, syrup that clung to the pieces of thick pasta I ate with it. I was very good indeed.