Coda alla Vaccinara is a classic dish from Rome that is oxtail stewed in tomato sauce with lardo, wine, garlic, and the holy trinity of Italian stews (onion, carrot, celery). Some recipes include more ‘exotic’ ingredients like raisins, pine nuts, cinnamon, cloves, and even cocoa powder. It can be served in two courses: starting with a primo piatto, pasta such as rigatoni with the sauce, followed by a secondo of the meat with some sauce. The traditional recipe and a sous vide version are already on my blog, as well as the primo piatto. For a more festive version, I decided to make ravioli with the meat as filling. I cooked the oxtail sous vide, but you could also cook it on the stovetop or in the oven and then follow the same procedure as I did to make the ravioli. To make the sauce even richer, I used the bones and other scraps to make a stock, reduced it, and added it to the sauce. You could also add the reduced stock to the filling, but I did not have time for that (as I was already folding the ravioli while the stock was still in progress). The dish is so rich that I would not recommend to serve this as a main course; a moderate portion is more enjoyable.

As I needed to slice the lardo, this was also a good opportunity to show off the latest addition to my kitchen: a Berkel slicing machine.

Ingredients

For 6-8 servings (makes about 40 ravioli) as primo piatto

• 1.2 kilo (2.6 lbs) oxtail
• 100 grams (3.5 oz) lardo, thinly sliced and then minced
• 1 can (400 grams/14 oz) peeled tomatoes, pureed in the food processor
• 250 ml (1 cup) dry white wine
• 100 grams minced onion (1 onion)
• 100 grams minced celery (1 1/2 celery sticks)
• 100 grams minced carrot (1 carrot)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 cloves (optional)
• 1 cinnamon stick (optional)
• 250 ml (1 cup) beef stock (optional)
• fresh pasta dough made with 3 eggs and about 300 grams (2 cups) Italian 00 flour
• olive oil
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 50 grams pecorino romano cheese + more for garnish
• 2 Tbsp minced fresh flat leaf parsley

Instructions

Slice the lardo thinly, then mince it together with the carrot, onion, and celery. I used my food processor for this.

Season the oxtail pieces with salt and brown them in olive oil over high heat. Set them aside on a plate to cool off once they have been browned on all sides.

Do not clean the pan after browning…

…but add the minced onion, celery, carrot, and lardo to the pan with the drippings from browning the oxtail.

Stir over medium-high heat until the vegetables are dry and stat to turn golden brown, then add the minced garlic.

Stir for another minute, then add 250 ml of white wine.

Scrape with a wooden spatula to get all of the flavor stuck to the pan into the sauce, and allow the wine to be reduced.

Add a cinnamon stock and 3 cloves, if using.

When the wine has evaporated, add the tomatoes.

Add the beef stock, if using. If you are going to use the bones from the oxtail to make stock, it is not really necessary to add more beef stock.

(If not cooking sous vide, this where to return the meat to the pan. The meat should be covered by the liquid and covered. Simmer the meat on the stovetop or in the oven until tender, which will take several hours.)

Allow the sauce to simmer over medium-high heat…

…until it is quite thick. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and freshly ground black pepper. As the lardo is already quite salty, you may not need to add any salt.

There are three methods to vacuum seal the meat with the sauce for sous vide cooking:

• Allow sauce and meat to cool completely, then vacuum seal with a chamber vacuum sealer.
• Allow sauce and meat to cool completely, then vacuum seal with an external vacuum sealer (this should work if you reduced the sauce by enough, otherwise you may need to freeze the sauce first).
• Put the sauce and meat in a ziploc bag and use the water displacement method to seal it with minimal air (no need to chill meat and sauce for this option).

Then cook the oxtail sous vide for 24 hours at 74C/165F. (You could also cook it for longer to make it easier to separate the meat from the bones and connective tissue, or cook it for 4 days at 60C/140F to keep the meat medium rather than well done. But I don’t think that is worth the long cooking time for this preparation as the meat is chopped and mixed with the sauce anyway.)

Pour the contents of the bag into a bowl and allow to cool until it is no longer too hot to handle.

Pick the meat off the bones and connective tissue with your fingers. This is the hardest part of working with oxtail (which will become easier if you cook for a longer time). Reserve the sauce.

Put the bones and connective tissue in a stockpot or pressure cooker.

Cover with water, bring to pressure, and pressure cook for 2 hours, or bring to a boil, and simmer, covered for 4 hours.

Afterwards, strain the stock into a wide pan, bring to a boil…

…and reduce until you have only 250 ml (1 cup) or so left of concentrated stock.

Combine the meat you picked off the bones in a food processor together with a ladle (about 1/2 cup or 120 ml) of the sauce and 50 grams of freshly grated pecorino romano cheese. Instead of adding the sauce, you could also add some of the concentrated stock.

Process using the “pulse” function of the food processor until the meat is minced but not pureed.

Transfer the filling into a bowl, cover, and refrigerate for at least half an hour to allow it to firm up. Make fresh pasta dough using my instructions, and allow that to rest for at least half an hour in the refrigerator as well.

When the filling and pasta dough have rested sufficiently, roll out the pasta dough thinly, and make ravioli according to my instructions.

You can make the ravioli in any shape or size you like. Take into account that smaller means more work. Everything up to here can be prepared in advance.

To finish the dish, combine the reserved sauce with the reduced stock, bring to a boil, and reduce it a bit more if needed. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. When the water boils, add salt and the ravioli. Boil them for 2 minutes only.

When the ravioli have been boiled, lift them out of the pot with a strainer, and add them to the sauce. Gently toss the ravioli with the sauce, until they are covered all over with the sauce.

Serve the ravioli at once on preheated plates, garnished with minced parsley, and freshly grated pecorino romano.

Wine pairing

This will work well with a full-bodied Italian red wine such as a Chianti Classico Riserva.