Paniolo Smoked Oxtail

Hawaii oxtail soup is a plantation-era Chinese-Hawaiian dish and it's beloved for a reason: a clear ginger broth built on star anise, dried tangerine peel, raw peanuts, and shiitake, served with a saucer of grated ginger and shoyu for dipping. Paniolo — the Hawaiian cowboy, working cattle on the Big Island since the 1830s, the word itself worn down from español — is the other half of the island's beef story. This recipe puts them together.

It's a riff, not the soup, and it should be called that. Instead of going straight into the pot, the oxtail spends three hours over kiawe first, so the fat renders slow and picks up smoke before the braise. Then it goes into the aromatics covered and finishes until the meat lets go of the bone. What you end up with is thick and glossy over hot rice rather than clear in a bowl. Keep the ginger-shoyu saucer on the table anyway — it belongs.

Ingredients

• 5 lbs oxtail, cut 2 inches thick, patted dry
• Kosher salt and coarse black pepper
• 1 four-inch knob ginger, sliced thin on the bias
• 8 garlic cloves, smashed
• 3 star anise, 1 stick cinnamon, 2 strips dried tangerine peel
• 1/2 cup shoyu
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sake or shaoxing wine
• 4 cups beef stock
• 6 dried shiitake, soaked, plus the soaking water
• Green onion and cilantro, sliced, for the finish
• Hot rice, and chili pepper water on the side

Cook Sequence

1. Salt and pepper the oxtail hard on every face — this is a lot of surface area and it can take it. Let it sit 30 minutes while the pit climbs to 250F.
2. Oxtail on the grate, fat cap up, 3 hrs over kiawe. You want the exterior dark and dry at 160-165F. The rendering fat drips and flares less with kiawe than with fruit woods, so run it a little hotter without worry.
3. Everything else into a foil pan: ginger, garlic, star anise, cinnamon, tangerine peel, shoyu, sugar, sake, stock, shiitake and their soaking water. Oxtail in, cover tight with foil.
4. Pit up to 275F. Braise 2.5-3 hrs. Check at 2.5 — the meat should be retreating from the bone ends and a probe should hit 205F with no resistance.
5. Rest 20 minutes covered. Skim the fat cap off the top of the liquid; there will be a lot of it and it will be the difference between rich and greasy.
6. Reduce the strained liquid in a pan over the coals, 10-12 minutes, until it coats a spoon. Pour it back over the oxtail and turn the pieces to glaze.
7. Over hot rice, green onion and cilantro on top, chili pepper water within reach. Eat it with your hands and a lot of napkins — that's the local way and it's the correct way.

Round Out the Plate

• Chili Pepper Water — the island condiment this dish is built around
• Japanese Pickled Cucumbers — crisp and cold against all that fat
• Hawaiian Macaroni Salad — if you're building it as a plate lunch