This is comfort food at its most comforting, one of the many humble but delicious dishes that typify popular cooking in the Eternal City: Roman-style braised oxtails.
The  Italian word vaccinara actually means “butcher style”. The tail is one of those cuts of meat that are known in Italian as the quinto quarto, or literally the “fifth forth”. In the old days, animals were cut up in four quarters, or quarti, the first quarto went to nobility, the second to the clergy, the third to the merchant class and the fourth to the military. What was left over–the entrails and such–or the ‘fifth quarter’, went to proletarians like the butchers. And, of course, if you were a butcher, you’d want to maximize your income by selling the best parts, keeping only the cuts least in demand for yourself.
This, they say, is why so many typical Roman dishes are made from organs: rigatoni con la pajata, for example–rigatoni dressed with a sauce of tomatoes and the intestines of suckling kids, or fritto misto alla romana, which inevitably includes calf’s brains, or coratella, the heart, lung and esophagus of lamb, sauteed with artichokes—or coda alla vaccinara.
Even though oxtail is a humble cut, it may be the sweetest, most tender, most unctuous meat you will ever eat. If you’ve never tried it, you owe it to yourself to do so!
Here’s how I like to make this dish:
Ingredients
Serves 4-6
- 1 kilo (2 lbs) oxtails
- 75g (2 oz) pancetta, cut into small dice
- 1 medium onion
- 1 carrot
- 1 stalk of celery for the soffrito, plus another stalk for the end
- A few sprigs of fresh parsley
- Olive oil
- White wine
- One small can (400g) crushed canned tomatoes
- A bay leaf
- A few cloves
- Salt and pepper
Directions
Sauté a soffrito made from finely chopped pancetta, onion, carrot, celery and parsley in olive oil over medium-low heat until tender. Then raise the heat to medium-low and add pieces of oxtail with crowding. Allow the oxtails to brown, turning them often, and seasoning with salt and pepper. Be careful not to allow the vegetables to burn; add a bit of water if need be. (The pieces will not caramelize, just lightly brown. That’s fine–the main point of this operation is for the meat to insaporire, meaning to absorb the flavor of the soffrito. )
Add wine–some recipes call for red wine and some for white, which I prefer–and allow it to boil off completely, again turning the oxtail pieces. Then some crushed tomatoes (the amount will depend on your taste, but I like abundant sauce so add quite a bit) and then enough water (or broth) to just cover the oxtail pieces, along with a bay leaf and a few cloves. (If you’re fussy, these can be tied up in cheesecloth and removed before serving.) Cover and simmer until the meat is very tender, almost falling off the bone, anywhere from 2 to 4 hours, depending on the meat. I find it usually takes more like 4 than 2 hours. This dish is the very definition of ‘slow food’.
Now for the finishing touch: About 30 minutes or so before the dish is done, add a generous amount of chopped celery and allow it to cook along with the oxtail and other vegetables. This is very important, as the celery balances the unctuousness of the oxtail and sauce with a bit of astringency. The dish would otherwise be a bit too cloying.
Notes
Like other braised dishes, coda alla vaccinara is even better left overnight and reheated the next day. If you want a less rich dish, you can leave it in the refrigerator and skim off some of the excess fat–and there will be a lot of it, since oxtail is a rather fatty cut of meat.
If you want to speed things up a bit, you can simmer the coda in a pressure cooker. However, even after 1-2 hours under pressure, you’ll still need to continue simmering off-pressure for about an hour or so to reduce the sauce and concentrate the flavor. So, to my mind, this is one case when you may not save yourself that much time.
Make sure you have plenty of bread to sop up the sauce, which is absolutely divine. In fact, coda may be even better as a sauce for pasta: remove the meat from the bones, chop it up and add it back into the sauce, and use this to dress rigatoni to make rigatoni alla vaccinara.
Like most popular dishes, there are lots of variations. This version is, to my mind, the most straightforward and flavorful. But some recipes call for boiling the oxtail first for its broth (which you can keep for soup or risotto) and then adding it to the soffritto. And many, perhaps most, recipes call for parboiling the celery pieces before adding them to the oxtail at the end, which takes some of the ‘bite’ off the celery. I find that step unnecessary (especially using American celery, which is quite mild in flavor to begin with) and, in any event, as I said, the celery helps balance the flavors of the dish.
If you like spice, you can add a bit of peperoncino (or red pepper flakes) to the soffrito. Other variations tend toward the sweet or sweet-and-sour. Nutmeg or cinnamon is sometimes added. Some variations even call for raisins and dark chocolate–never had that version, and I’m sure I want to try it…
Home sweet home:
By the way, besides loving the taste, I feel a special connection to Roman-style braised oxtails for another reason: apparently the section (rione) of Rome where the butches lived and where tradition has it that this dish was born was called Regola. Well, that’s where we used to live, in the piazza San Paolo alla Regola, a quiet little piazza only a few steps from bustling Campo dei fiori.
Coda alla vaccinara (Butcher-Style Braised Oxtails)
Ingredients
- 1 kilo 2 lbs oxtails
- 75 g 2 oz pancetta, cut into small dice
- 1 medium onion
- 1 carrot
- 1 stalk of celery for the soffrito plus another stalk for the end
- A few sprigs of fresh parsley
- Olive oil
- White wine
- One small can 400g crushed canned tomatoes
- A bay leaf
- A few cloves
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
- Sauté a soffrito made from finely chopped panetta, onion, carrot, celery and parsley in olive oil over medium-low heat until tender.
- Then raise the heat to medium-low and add pieces of oxtail with crowding. Allow the oxtails to brown, turning them often, and seasoning with salt and pepper. Be careful not to allow the vegetables to burn; add a bit of water if need be.
- Add wine and allow it to boil off completely, again turning the oxtail pieces. Then some crushed tomatoes and then enough water (or broth) to just cover the oxtail pieces, along with a bay leaf and a few cloves.
- Cover and simmer until the meat is very tender, almost falling off the bone, anywhere from 2 to 4 hours, depending on the meat.
- About 30 minutes or so before the dish is done, add a generous amount of chopped celery and allow it to cook along with the oxtail and other vegetables until everything is done.
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13 Comments on “Coda alla vaccinara (Roman-Style Braised Oxtails)”
Thanks Frank for this wonderful recipe that I’m making again today. Perfect for this cool, damp Florida day. Funny how times change though – oxtails, that humble cut of meat, used to be “almost free”. Not so humble anymore at $6.99 / lb. For the little bit of meat on the pieces, I’d guess it’s now as expensive as tenderloin since there’s no bone waste with tenderloin!
Thank you for the wonderful recipe. After our trip to Italy last fall I have quite a taste for ox tail stew. My mother use to make it when I was little…well before the network chefs made it popular and the price skyrocketed!! The aroma in my kitchen is divine:) I do have a question though…the ox tail are not as tender as I remember. Is it possible to purchase poor quality?? Or did I cook it too long? I figured if 2 hours is good, then 4 hours is better….no?
Too bad, isn’t it, about the price of ox tails? The same thing happened with lamb shanks, too! I have to think it’s always possible to purchase poor quality, but cooking too long can’t be the problem. The meat should get more tender the longer you cook it.
Thank You Frank, I think I will try a different butcher. Maybe I’ll cook them 5 hours next time.( the aroma in the kitchen is divine:) Thanks again for a recipe that not only brings me back to my childhood, it brings me back to our wonderful trip to Italy last year.
You’re welcome! And thank you for your readership. 🙂
What a delicious dish. A question though: In the directions we are told to make the soffrito using “panetta” but “panetta” doesn’t appear the the list of ingredients. And I’m guessing that “panetta” is actually pancetta? Regardless, when I prepared this I used about 4 ounces of chopped pancetta. My wife sorta looked at me and the uncooked oxtail askance (as in, why would you cook a tail?) but once she got over the concept, she too found it wonderful. Thanks Frank for your great recipes — I’ve tried many and I love them all!
Jim,
Thanks for the heads up! You’re quite right, of course, the word is pancetta, and I’ve corrected the typo and added it to the ingredients list. Personally, I’d used a bit less pancetta but with a recipe like this exact measurements don’t much matter.
Anyway so glad you enjoyed the dish. It’s one of my favorites. And thanks for your readership!
Cheers,
Frank
Jim,
Sorry for the late reply but thanks for the heads up! You’re quite right, of course, the word is pancetta, and I’ve corrected the typo and added it to the ingredients list. Personally, I’d used a bit less pancetta but with a recipe like this exact measurements don’t much matter.
Anyway so glad you enjoyed the dish. It’s one of my favorites. And thanks for your readership!
Cheers,
Frank
I’ve been looking for an authentic recipe for this ever since I tried it in Italy! This looks great! After cooking this dish, could I freeze extra portions to eat at a later date? Or does it not freeze well?
I’ve never tried it, but my hunch is that this dish would freeze quite well.
we found private, neighborhood butcher, get the ox tail and we are cooking this tomorrow. thank you for inspiration
Thanks for the kind words! Do try it. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
this looks amazing! 🙂 I will try your recipe in the winter time.