Ox tail, heirloom carrots, wild mushrooms, mushroom butter

Something I made a few weeks ago. Funny how the component that takes the most time to make are the ones that aren’t the center of attention – the reduction and the mushroom butter.

So let’s get straight to it. What did I do to the reduction and mushroom butter? Here it is.

First, the reduction is made the traditional way of roasting the bones, vegetables, and making a stock from it. Mind you, I think I had equal amounts of bone to water at the beginning. This step alone takes at least 8 hours. I can’t leave the stove turned on overnight so I had to do it over 2 work days. Then collect the stock, and partially reduce it. Just so I can actually put it all in the centrifuge vials. Once that’s done, I centrifuge it to remove all the solids, aka scum. What happens is you now have stock that is free of any solids and has the smoothest mouthfeel ever. After that, reduce it to the point where it resembles tar. That dark, thick beautiful substance that can blow minds. At the end, add a nub of butter, swirl, and done! Well, not quite yet. Put 100ml of that reduction into a beaker, and blitz it in the SonicPrep. Why? It changes the mouthfeel. It makes it even more velvety. Also, it’s not as quick to get sticky when it cools down. The colour also changes into a creamy dark brown.

Comparatively, the mushroom butter is less involving. First, brown some portobello and oyster mushrooms. The more browning, the better. Then freeze it overnight before heading to freeze dry for 2 days. Once its as dry as British humour, turn it to dust using a vitamix blender. Then just add it with melted butter.

See, I don’t even want to bother talking about the ox tail itself. But let me just say, it was damn good.