Marcus Samuelsson shares a comfort-food recipe for oxtail pepperpot with dumplings

Oxtail is one of my favorite meats, and I like it best when it has been slow-cooked for hours, so I recommend cooking it the day before and letting it sit overnight. What makes this dish from my cookbook “The Rise” so homey and delicious is the mix of the oxtail and the dumplings, which everyone can relate to as being an example of comfort food at its finest.

This traditional Caribbean dish — mostly from Guyana — is made by stewing meat in a dark, rich gravy flavored with cinnamon, brown sugar, hot chiles and cassareep, a special brown sauce made from cassava root. African Americans adapted the recipe using oxtail instead of offal, which are the internal organs of butchered animals. Regardless, this is a dish that only gets better with time in the pot.

Oxtail Pepperpot with Dumplings

Servings: 4 to 6

Ingredients
For the oxtail
1 (4-pound) piece oxtail
1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ cup vegetable oil
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 onion, diced
21 cloves garlic, minced
7 tablespoons minced ginger (3-inch piece)
2 plum tomatoes, diced
2 scallions, sliced
1 Scotch bonnet (or habanero) chile, stemmed and chopped
3 sprigs fresh thyme
7 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon whole allspice berries
6 cups chicken stock

For the dumplings
2 cups all-purpose flour
2½ tablespoons cornmeal
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons water

Directions

For the oxtail: Season the oxtail on all sides with salt and pepper. Heat ¼ cup of the oil in a large (8-quart) Dutch oven set over medium-high heat. When the oil shimmers, add the oxtail and brown on both sides, about 15 minutes.

Remove the oxtail to a paper-towel-lined dish. Heat the remaining ¼ cup oil in the Dutch oven and add the carrots, onion, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, scallions, chile, thyme, brown sugar, soy sauce, ketchup and allspice and stir to combine. Return the oxtail to the pot, add the chicken stock, and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to maintain a simmer and cook, covered, for 2½ hours, or until the oxtail is tender and the meat is falling away from the bone.

For the dumplings: Place the flour, cornmeal and salt in a medium bowl and stir to combine. Add the water and use your hands to work the mixture into a dough ball. Knead the dough in the bowl for 2 to 3 minutes. Divide the dough in half and cover one half with a damp towel.

Continue to knead one dough ball for 5 minutes, or until smooth. Roll the piece of dough into a 21- to 24-inch snakelike piece. Cut the dough into 1-inch pieces, set on a baking sheet, and cover with a damp towel.

Repeat with remaining dough ball.

Stir the dumplings into the oxtail stew for the last 30 minutes of cooking time and cook until dumplings are tender and cooked through.

Serve the stew with rice and peas.
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Marcus Samuelsson is the chef behind many restaurants worldwide. He is also co-chair of the Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP), which focuses on underserved youth, and coproduces the annual Harlem EatUp! festival, which celebrates the food, art and culture of Harlem.

Excerpted from “The Rise” by Marcus Samuelsson. Copyright (copyright) 2020 by Marcus Samuelsson. Used with permission of Voracious, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. New York, NY. All rights reserved.