March 1st, 2011: Oxtail Soup

Ok, where did I get this idea? Ox tails? That's just cow tail, right? Gross... Ok, I got the idea from the Illinois Cookbook that I've grown to love so much. The idea to make this soup didn't really come from anything too sinister. Truly, it was mostly just shock that brought me in. The idea of making something so... awkward appealed to me.

When I brought up this soup, Blair's reaction was that of disbelief. She claimed that I needed a pressure cooker to render the meat soft enough to eat and that I wouldn't do it. I had been talking about this soup since the day that I got the cookbook and March 1st was just the day that I took the challenge. So, I hit up my usual grocery store (Meijer) and preceded to purchase the ingredients for mirepoix, some beef bouillon, bay leaves and ox tails. Oddly, the bay leaves ended up being the most expensive... at around $6 a bottle. I guess the poor can't get bay leaves at Meijer. Or maybe they were just sold out of the cheap ones. I was as pleased as a kitten with a dead bird with this trip.

So, the first thing I do when I get home is fill my "stock" pot with water and put it to a boil. The second thing? I attempted to cut the ox tails. I quickly found out that that was not an option. There was a reason that Blair's aunt uses a pressure cooker: this shit is tough! TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH! I called my mom, thinking that since it was out of the Illinois Cookbook, that my mother will have had some experience with ox tails. When I asked her, the first words out of her mouth were "wait... you're cooking WHAT?" She had no advice. I had to improvise, so I threw the ox tails, bone and all, in the boiling water, along with some bay leaves and beef bouillon.

Next step, make mirepoix for the first time! Wait, really? Never made it before this? Thinking back, that's true. I've used it quite a bit since then, but before then, I never depended on a lot of "knowledge," more just instinct. So, I sliced up the mirepoix and poured it in the pot. Following that, I had to seed and skin my tomatoes, having just talked about why you seed tomatoes in my class that day. I learned the trick of blanching and shocking to skin tomatoes from food network, seeding on the other hand, I hadn't. I had to call my mother and ask her how to do it.

"Do you have a peeler?" she asked.
"Yeah, of course." I told her.
She sighed and asked "Is it that one from that set of Kitchen stuff from Target?"
"No, it's an Oxo, why?"
Her demeanor lifted "use the end like a scoop in the seed pits when you slice the tomato, it gets it right out."

Bad ass, my peeler was not a uni-tasker. After peeling, chopping and seeding the tomatoes I added them to the soup. At this point it literally turned into cooking until the soup was done. Once the meat softened up enough, I'd pull it out and tear it off its bones, but that's the only step between it being done, other than waiting. (I should explain this picture, it's how I peel tomatoes. I boil them for a few seconds and then shock them in ice water and the skin comes right off. I picked that up from Food Network)


The soup turned out decent. I added a bit of chili paste to give a bit of warmth, but it gave it too much heat. Honestly? The oxtail was the best beef I'd eaten in a long time. It was so flavorful and tender, it was like chewing on nothing at all. It almost melted in your mouth. I was rather impressed by this "offal" meat.