Oxtail and beetroot pie

Oxtail and beetroot pie II
Originally uploaded by Cakelaw

A Kiwi food magazine, Cuisine, has recently hit the shelves en masse in Australia. I presume that it is only recent because I have never seen it before. I bought the July 2007 issue of Cuisine, and boy, it is good - right up there with Delicious and Donna Hay Magazine. I was so impressed that I subscribed to Cuisine, bringing my food magazine subscriptions to three.

The cover of the July issue of Cuisine features a pile of pastry leaves that have been swept up by a pastry brush. It is really cute! The cover was presumably inspired by the "Upper Crust Pies" feature in the July edition. One of those pie recipes is for Oxtail and Beetroot Pie. As soon as I read this recipe, I knew I wanted to make it. You can find the recipe here.

This pie truly is a labour of love, taking me five or so hours to make all up (including resting and cooling times) spread over a couple of days. It was also not a cheap pie to make, as it contains one whole bottle of red wine and 1.5kg of oxtail, which despite constituting offal, costs as much as ordinary meat. (I cheated and used a slightly lesser quantity of oxtail.)

However, the end result of this expenditure of money and labour was worth it. This pie is rich and flavoursome, and absolutely perfect as a winter meal. The author of the recipe mentions that it is also good to eat cold; however, with the wind howling outside and the temperature dropping below 10 degrees Celsius, I think I will be consuming the entirety of this pie as a hot dish.

If you are feeling up to the challenge, I recommend trying this recipe - this pie is absolutely delicious!