First, go read oxtail.
Rabo is similar. It's made from the cow's tail. But it isn't oxtail — it's rabo. Roll your r.
Rabo encendido — literally, lit tail. A traditional Cuban stew.
You farm for a living, you learn to make use of your animals. Before Castro and Batista and everyone else came along one farmed for a living — tobacco, sugar cane. You worked the earth and smoked cigars at night. My gradmother told me of days before she exiled when she would pluck sugar cane and eat it raw. She'd describe the taste of earth carried by the tropic wind in the leaves lowest down. Usually she told me while spooning C&H into a bowl of Cheerios for me. But when they weren't tasting their sugar cane they were cutting the tails off their butchered beef and seasoning and cooking them. One would never know that a bovine's most delicious meat is in its tail.
Saturday mornings we'd hop in her late-model Lumina and drive to the Orange County Civic Center near the defunct courthouse, where she'd pick up some government-aid canned goods. It was mostly fruit and small things she could use for cooking, sometimes a white can of peanut butter for yours truly — usually though it was things like baby onions, olives, tomato sauce. Always tomato sauce.
It was usually a long wait. Not as long I suppose as if we'd been waiting for rations in Havana, and we probably got more food at the Civic Center anyway, but I doubt the irony was lost on my grandmother.
But this is not a writeup about irony or bitterness; it is a writeup about rabo.
Rabo Encendido
3-4 hours prep/cook time
Calories like crazy but you don't care about that
Serves 4
Consult some cookbooks: some of them will tell you to remove the meat from the bones before cooking. Do not.
For a bare-bones serving of this dish you will need the following:
If you're feeling adventurous, you may wish to add chopped
celery,
carrots, or green bell pepper. Unsweetened
chocolate powder will lend the stew a
mole taste. Green
Spanish olives added liberally will add some tang. No
pimento, please.
Cajun seasoning's another option, along with
thyme and
nutmeg in ¼ – ½ teaspoon. There are as many versions of this dish as there are Cubans who make it.
Throw in some lime juice if you wish also.
First, roll the tail segments in flour. This is a stew. It's gotta be thick.
Using a large pan or small oven, Brown the meat on all sides in the oil for five minutes or so. Replace the meat with the onions/pepper/whatever. When the onions turn transluscent add the garlic and cook for another minute.
Add the tomato sauce, the wine, the browned meat, and the spices. Drop in potatos, celery, and carrots. Let it simmer for two and a half hours, stirring occasionally, adding spices as needed.
When serving, you may include eighty year old men playing dominoes for atmosphere. Pepper conversation liberally with Fuck Castro. For lighting include afternoon sun through half-drawn curtains, adding slowdancing cigar smoke for additional texture.
If you eat the fat you are less squeamish than me.
Sources
Recipe from grandmother to mother to fingertips to copper wire to world