[30 Day Challenge] Something Soupy

Random Observation/Comment #378: Oxtail sounds really gross, but there’s quite a lot of meat on it, and when you make soup with it, the bone thickens the broth and brings the taste to a whole new level.

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Recipe: Something soupy – oxtail soup

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I did not follow the recipe from allrecipes because I’ve made this soup at least 20 times. I altered it slightly based on the groceries available and for the first time tried something new with combining the products of multiple dishes.  As you may have noticed, I don’t cook every day – instead, I may make 2 or 3 things for a group meal. In this case, I was back at the apartment and wanted to make the oxtail soup (because it’s rampantly available where I live in Harlem), and I wanted to make mashed potatoes with the rest of the bag.  What I did here that turned out amazing was use some of the soup to boil the potatoes for the mashed potatoes. Once they were soft enough, I strained the water back into the soup to add the extra starch from the potatoes. The potatoes then had a bit of the meat/vegetable broth in it and the soup became much thicker.

Lessons Learned:

  •  If you’re making multiple meals (which you usually would with soup), I would consider using the broth for the cooking process of the other items. This could work for pasta, potatoes, rice, etc. The soup could then be placed back into the main stock.
  • Oxtail and maybe even the vegetables can be placed on a hot wok/skillet to brown the outside before throwing it into the pot. Be sure to marinate it generously.
  • I added some egg noodles to the final product so that we’d have more to eat on top of the potatoes and carrots. This was a great idea, but made the soup a little too thick. Next time, I’d definitely cook them separately and add them in on the side.
  • Don’t be afraid to play around with the flavors. The oxtail will make an excellent broth and if you cook it for around 2.5 hours, it will be tender enough.  For better results, I’d suggest transferring to a crock pot and boil overnight.

Final Thoughts:

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The additions of the egg noodle and outstanding results of the mashed potatoes (that I’ll post about tomorrow) made this an incredibly successful dinner. I never realized that there could be another dimension of commonality when cooking because I often cooked one recipe at a time. This encourages me to revisit cooking combinations of foods as meals.  If you’re uncomfortable with using oxtail, any bone will do – it’ll really add the extra meaty flavor that comes out when you add salt and pepper.

~See Lemons Eat Oxtail Soupy