Braised Oxtail with Cauliflower

Although I wanted to do a beef dish I felt that I shouldn't add a pickle or anything with black garlic (can't have you guys thinking I'm a one trick pony). It took me forever to end up with something that I was happy with because I was plagued by variety of super sad garnishes: I discovered that alinea's braised red cabbage totally doesn't work with oxtail, chile threads aren't exciting if you don't use hot enough peppers, and spring onions don't really sear up very nicely. After nearly all hope was lost, I stumbled on MC's crispy cauliflower dish and decided that I could basically use half of it as a garnish... And it worked!

(Above: a sad plate with like 10 garnishes that don't work. Though the microwaved carrots were pretty tasty).

Braised Oxtail
2000g oxtail
435g crushed red tomatoes
100g red wine + more if needed
100g onion
100g water
50g fennel
40g carrot
25g garlic
20g butter
10g parsley
6g rosemary
3g thyme
2 bay leaves
salt, as needed
pepper, as needed
all purpose flour, as needed

Prep the veg by making a bouquet garni out of the thyme, parsley, rosemary, and bay leaves. Next, thinly slice the onion, carrot, fennel and garlic. Reserve. 

Season the oxtails generously with salt and pepper on all sides. Meanwhile, Bring about 3/4" of oil to 400F.

I was so excited about my brand new IR thermometer that I couldn't help but show off a little bit - how cool is that thing?!

Lightly dredge the oxtails in flour and shake off the excess. Sear until all sides are golden brown, working in batches if necessary. Remove oxtails from the oil and reserve.

Add the reserved vegetables and butter to a pressure cooker and saute on medium heat. After the vegetables have softened, add the reserved oxtails, bouquet garni, crushed tomatoes, water, and wine. Add more wine as necessary to cover the oxtails. Pressure cook for two hours and chill the entire pressure cooker in an ice bath until completely cooled.

Reserve the oxtails and make the sauce by removing all of the fat. Strain the liquid and push the solids through the screen with the back of a spoon. Reduce the mixture at a bare simmer until a glace-like consistency has formed. Note that if the mixture is beginning to get too salty (it shouldn't) you can stop reducing it and add a little bit of xanthan gum to complete this step. Once the desired consistency is reached, season to taste and reserve. 

Phew - that was a little more involved than I thought it would be. Next up is a bunch of stuff made from cauliflower, which (surprise!) required way more cauliflower than I expected. I was actually pretty impressed (and simultaneously saddened) that the only thing I needed to go out and buy for this was the milk.

Cauliflower Foam
375g whole milk
300g cauliflower trimmings
175g water

I'd like to point out that cauliflower, son of regular flour, gets EVERYWHERE - So if I'm using both in the same recipe, you can bet that my little-ass kitchen has it's own mini apocalypse.

Simmer all of the ingredients together for 20 minutes. Afterwards, remove from the heat and let steep for an additional 40 minutes. Strain and reserve.

Brown Butter
butter

I looked up the way this clown does it in the book and he adds powdered milk and uses a mason jar to pressure cook it or something. Yeah, none of that happened. Just in case, here's how I did it:
Step 1) get butter
Step 2) make brown butter

Cauliflower Foam (cont.)
500g thinly sliced cauliflower
20g brown butter (from above)
15g  cocoa butter

Brown the cauliflower in the butters until nice and golden. Puree and reserve. This actually smells pretty heavenly.

Cauliflower Foam (cont.)
400g cauliflower milk (from above), cold
25g browned cauliflower puree (from above)
1g low-acyl gellan gum (kelcogel F)
0.4g locust bean gum
salt, as needed

Disperse gums in cold milk. Blend using an immersion blender, heat to 203F and hold the mixture at that temperature for 3 minutes. Strain and refrigerate until this mixture sets, about 15 minutes.
Blend in the browned cauliflower puree, season with salt to taste, and add the mixture to a siphon. Charge the siphon with two nitrogen cartridges and reserve.

To Complete
3/4" cauliflower steaks, as needed (two per person)
small cauliflower florets, as needed (about 3-5 per person)
canola oil (as needed)
oxtails
oxtail sauce 
lemon thyme leaves
cauliflower foam

Gently reheat the oxtails and oxtail sauce (separately). Meanwhile, deep fry the cauliflower steaks and florets in canola oil. Arrange oxtail, oxtail sauce, deep fried cauliflower steaks and florets as well as the cauliflower foam on the plate. Garnish with lemon thyme leaves.

While it may seem like this dish is a little bare on garnishes, I think less can be more. The richness of both the oxtails and sauce are nicely complemented by the crispy cauliflower and lightened by the delicately lemony-thyme and frothy cauliflower foam. Yum!