Step by step

Add the tomato passata to the saucepan and bring to the boil, then add salt and pepper, a little sugar, cover, and simmer gently

Tips
The traditional recipe demands that, before adding the pine nuts, celery and raisins, one removes the sauce and uses as a pasta sauce.
Trivia
From the heart of Rome, in the cattle slaughterers’ district, oxtail stew is considered to be the ‘queen of the fifth quarter’, or what remains of the cow after all the more prized cuts have been sold to the wealthy: thus we’re talking about offal such as the heart, spleen, tail and tripe.