Coda alla Vaccinara

Ingredients
2 lbs. oxtail
3 oz. lard
1 head of celery, finely diced
1 clove garlic
1 onion
1 carrot
salt
1 peperoncino (optional)
1 cup red wine
1 lb. peeled tomatoes
1 bay leaf
pepper

How to make Coda alla vaccinara:

Cut the oxtail across into pieces 1 1/2-in. long. Cover with cold water and let rest for 30
min. Boil and simmer for 5 min. Drain and dry. Chop the lard, half of the celery, with garlic,
onion and carrot, salt, pepper and peperoncino. Cook until lightly brown and then add the
oxtail and brown. Add the wine and tomatoes. Braise on top of the stove at medium heat
for about 4 hours. Moist occasionally as it dries. When oxtails are tender remove it and
keep aside.

Strain the braising juice, de-grease and adjust seasoning. Return oxtails to sauce and
bring back to simmer. Clean and peel the remaining celery, dice finely and add to the
oxtail. Serve the coda alla vaccinara with broiled or fried polenta.azione

Serves 4

A bit of history.
For several thousand years, right up to the Second World War, teams of oxen plowed
fields and pulled loads around Rome. The great oxen retirement home was the
slaughterhouse, where their skins became leather, their horns a variety of accessories and
their meat stews.
The women and men whose job was to slaughter, butcher and skin the oxen were called
vaccinari, from the word vacca, meaning cow. They were paid in kind with skins, unwanted
organ meats, and oxtails. This engendered a style of cooking associated with the
neighborhood where the slaughterhouse and tanneries were located, Testaccio. It flanks
the Tiber on the southern end of Rome.
In Italy and elsewhere in Europe, the custom of raising beef for meat, as opposed to
raising oxen for plowing and transportation, is relatively recent, dating back to the 1800s.
That’s why, in English, we still refer to “oxtails” and not to “beef tails,” though there are
practically no true oxen left anywhere in the Western world. Most butcher shops and
supermarkets in America actually sell the cut as “beef oxtails.”