Oxtail is one of my favorite meats, and I like it best when it has been slow-cooked for hours, so I recommend cooking it the day before and letting it sit overnight. What makes this dish from my cookbook “The Rise” so homey and delicious is the mix of the oxtail and the dumplings, which everyone can relate to as being an example of comfort food at its finest.
This traditional Caribbean dish — mostly from Guyana — is made by stewing meat in a dark, rich gravy flavored with cinnamon, brown sugar, hot chiles, and cassareep, a special brown sauce made from cassava root. African Americans adapted the recipe using oxtail instead of offal, which are the internal organs of butchered animals. Regardless, this is a dish that only gets better with time in the pot.
Servings: 4 to 6
OXTAIL
1 (4-pound) piece oxtail
1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ cup vegetable oil
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 onion, diced
21 cloves garlic, minced
7 tablespoons minced ginger (3-inch piece)
2 plum tomatoes, diced
2 scallions, sliced
1 Scotch bonnet (or habanero) chile, stemmed and chopped
3 sprigs fresh thyme
7 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon whole allspice berries
6 cups chicken stock
DUMPLINGS
2 cups all-purpose flour
2½ tablespoons cornmeal
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons water
For the oxtail: Season the oxtail on all sides with salt and pepper. Heat ¼ cup of the oil in a large (8-quart) Dutch oven set over medium-high heat. When the oil shimmers, add the oxtail and brown on both sides, about 15 minutes.
Remove the oxtail to a paper-towel-lined dish. Heat the remaining ¼ cup oil in the Dutch oven and add the carrots, onion, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, scallions, chile, thyme, brown sugar, soy sauce, ketchup, and allspice and stir to combine. Return the oxtail to the pot, add the chicken stock, and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to maintain a simmer and cook, covered, for 2½ hours, or until the oxtail is tender and the meat is falling away from the bone.
For the dumplings: Place the flour, cornmeal, and salt in a medium bowl and stir to combine. Add the water and use your hands to work the mixture into a dough ball. Knead the dough in the bowl for 2 to 3 minutes. Divide the dough in half and cover one half with a damp towel.
Continue to knead one dough ball for 5 minutes, or until smooth. Roll the piece of dough into a 21- to 24-inch snakelike piece. Cut the dough into 1-inch pieces, set on a baking sheet, and cover with a damp towel.
Repeat with remaining dough ball.
Stir the dumplings into the oxtail stew for the last 30 minutes of cooking time and cook until dumplings are tender and cooked through.
Serve the stew with rice and peas.
Marcus Samuelsson is the chef behind many restaurants worldwide. He is also co-chair of the Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP), which focuses on underserved youth, and coproduces the annual Harlem EatUp! festival, which celebrates the food, art and culture of Harlem.
Excerpted from “The Rise” by Marcus Samuelsson. Copyright (copyright) 2020 by Marcus Samuelsson. Used with permission of Voracious, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. New York, NY. All rights reserved.
This cookbook cover image released by Voracious shows "The Rise" by Marcus Samuelsson. (Angie Moser/Voracious via AP)
This image released by Voracious shows a recipe for oxtail pepperpot with dumplings, from the cookbook "The Rise" by Marcus Samuelsson. (Angie Moser/Voracious via AP)
This image released by Voracious shows a recipe for oxtail pepperpot with dumplings, from the cookbook "The Rise" by Marcus Samuelsson. (Angie Moser/Voracious via AP)
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing a battle to stay in post as he comes under heavy criticism for his decision in 2024 to appoint veteran politician Peter Mandelson as the British ambassador to the U.S. despite the latter's ties to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Starmer’s judgment is in the spotlight like never before after the recent release of millions of pages of Epstein-related documents by the U.S. Justice Department showed how close Mandelson and Epstein were.
There’s widespread anger that the prime minister appointed Mandelson, long a key figure of Starmer's own Labour Party, to such a sensitive and high-profile post.
Starmer fired Mandelson in September after an earlier batch of emails was published showing he remained friends with Epstein after the late financier’s 2008 conviction for sex offenses involving a minor.
But the newly released emails show that Mandelson also passed on sensitive — and potentially market-moving — government information to the disgraced financier in 2009, when he was a member of the Labour Cabinet.
Starmer’s leadership has now been called into question, and several Labour lawmakers have called for him to quit. His chief of staff resigned on Sunday, taking the blame for advising Starmer to appoint Mandelson, and his communications director quit on Monday.
Many believe that is not enough to keep Starmer in the job.
The prime minister is trying to persuade his party members to back him. He has apologized to the British public and to the victims of Epstein’s sex trafficking for believing what he has termed “Mandelson’s lies.”
There are a number of ways in which Starmer could go, some more straightforward than others.
The simplest option is that Starmer announces his intention to resign, triggering an election for the Labour leadership. A resignation could possibly come if a delegation of Cabinet members tell Starmer he has lost too much support within the party or if members of his government quit in protest.
Those considered to harbor leadership ambitions include Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Home Secretary Shabana Mahood and former deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, who had to resign last year after admitting she didn’t pay enough tax on a house purchase. An investigation into that is ongoing.
But there's no clear front-runner.
Andy Burnham, the popular mayor of Manchester who was blocked from standing at a special election in the city later this month, would not be eligible because by longstanding convention the prime minister must be a member of Parliament.
Whoever does run, the election would likely take weeks, with Starmer likely staying in post until that concludes.
If Starmer decides to resign immediately, the Cabinet and Labour’s governing body would likely pick an interim leader to be prime minister, probably someone not standing to be Labour leader. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy could fit the bill.
Under Labour’s rules, candidates must have the support of a fifth of party lawmakers — about 80.
Those meeting that threshold would then have to receive the support of 5% of the local constituency Labour parties or at three least party affiliates, of which two must be trade unions. Affiliates are groups or organizations that are deemed to have interests consistent with those of the Labour Party; including trade unions and cooperative and socialist societies.
Eligible members of the party and affiliates will then vote for the leader using an electoral system that ranks the candidates. The winner is the first candidate to secure over 50% of the vote.
King Charles III would then invite the winner to become prime minister and form a government.
If Starmer does not resign, he could face a challenge, potentially from within his Cabinet.
Unlike the Conservative Party, which has a history of getting rid of leaders such as Margaret Thatcher in 1990 and Boris Johnson in 2022, Labour does not have that muscle memory. No Labour prime minister has ever been dislodged, though Tony Blair announced his plan to resign in 2007 after a series of low-level resignations.
Challengers would have to meet the eligibility thresholds above, but Starmer would automatically be on the ballot.
Starmer faces a series of hurdles in the weeks ahead. The first will probably be when files related to the vetting of Mandelson are published. Starmer will be hoping they show the scale of Mandelson’s lies. Should they not, that could be a point of high jeopardy for the prime minister.
Another potential pitfall could be the special election in Gorton and Denton on Feb. 26, traditionally a safe Labour seat. However, this time it will be a tough fight, with challenges from the anti-immigration Reform U.K. on the right and the Greens on the left.
The decision to bar Burnham from standing also poses a risk for Labour. Though he was blocked on the grounds that a Burnham victory would trigger a costly special election for the mayoralty in Manchester, critics claim that Starmer did not want to see a potentially dangerous rival back in the House of Commons.
After that comes a raft of elections in May. Many in Labour fear the party could lose power in Wales for the first time since the legislature was created in 1999, fall way short in Scotland and get battered in local elections in England.
It's clear that Starmer faces a difficult landscape.
And that’s barring surprise developments that could further rock his premiership.
“Events, dear boy, events,” Harold Macmillan, prime minister between 1957 and 1963, said when asked what the greatest challenges for leaders were.
FILE - President Donald Trump, left, gets a reaction from Britian's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson, right, as they take questions from members of the media after announcing a trade deal between U.S. and U.K. in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, May 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, file)
FILE - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, right, talks with Britain's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025 in Washington. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP, file)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer adjusts his glasses as he waits to deliver his speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer talks with members of the audience after delivering a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)
