How to Debone Oxtail?

How to Debone Oxtail? - Student Cheating During an Exam

I was reading this burger recipe from Serious Eats: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/10/the-blue-label-burger-blend-recipe.html

It sounds great, but it calls for ground oxtail, which does not sound easy to produce. I have a set of cooking knives, but does anyone know if it will be feasible to attempt this without special equipment and/or a lot of knife skill? I was hoping to just get the meat from Whole Foods rather than a specialty butcher, so I can't count on them deboning it for me.



Best Answer

Let the butcher do it

This is roughly the bone structure of a mammal tail:

tail bone structure

As you can see, it has very many small bones, with of course all the connective tissue. Unless you have solid knife skill, a very sharp boning knife (with the needle-like blade), a protective chain mail glove, and lots of patience, I would say something like this is better left for a professional butcher. Especially if you have not done much boning, this could easily end up in an injury.

For reference

Boning knives:

boning knives

Chainmain butcher glove:

butcher glove




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How do you get the meat out of an oxtail?

Pulling away the meat Oxtail contains a lot of bones. But don't even try to pull away the meat from the bone before cooking. It's just about impossible to remove it. Instead, focus on cutting the tail into smaller pieces or cut at least through the bone (see photo above).



How To De bone A Whole Oxtail. Is Life Too Short?..#SRP




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