Comments on: Oxtail Soup

By: scott

scott — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:16:38 +0000

Hi Teresa, well you’re in for a treat with ox-tail, it is delicious. You just need to remember to remove the “scum” which rises to the surface when cooking, but that’s not hard work at all.

Let me know how it turns out!

By: Teresa (angelgal01)

Teresa (angelgal01) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:44:05 +0000

Scott, I am so excited to have found this recipe in your archives! The local butcher here had some lovely ox tails chunks that I couldn’t resist. Problem is though I remember fondly enjoying oxtail soup in my childhood and somewhat more recently having lovely braised oxtail at a nearby braiserrie, I honestly don’t know how to cook these.

Thanks for this one!

By: The Omnivore’s 100 | RealEpicurean.com

The Omnivore’s 100 | RealEpicurean.com — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:47:23 +0000

[...] see what all the fuss is about. 39. Gumbo 40. Oxtail. Oxtail is great and cheap. Check out my Oxtail stew recipe for more. 41. Curried goat. I had this once in Malta at an African restaurant. 42. Whole [...]

By: scott

scott — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:57:42 +0000

Ray: I’m on holiday right now in Poland, and while it isn’t the most exotic of place it’s still a lot closer to how food “should” be. Buy a chicken at a market and get all the giblets in place plus the blood in a little bottle too, to use how you see fit. I can only guess that this stuff just goes to make sausages and / or cat food in the UK.

By: Ray

Ray — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 12:45:13 +0000

As my dad used to say “the only part of a hog we don’t use is the Oink”. Being brought up on a farm in the late 40’s and 50’s we grew and raised 90% of what we ate, nothing was wasted. Beef tongue was a delicacy as were the tails. I am amazed at the exorbiant price these 2 items command now days. I now work in the middle east and find many of the food items we ate on the farm on the menu here in Kuwait.

By: Susan

Susan — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 00:36:53 +0000

Yet another offal observation. I don’t know how it is in Europe, but in the U.S. it is very hard to find these “cheap” and therefore considered inferior cuts of meat. Occasionally, I will see oxtail and tripe, but there was a time when you could buy a package of chicken hearts or other innards as pretty standard. Now you can’t even find a heart in the giblet package insert in the whole roaster that you’ve bought, and whatever is in there probably doesn’t even belong to that particular bird. I suspect these “lesser delicacies” wind up being used as the by-products so labeled on pet food. Perhaps they are not quite so wasted as we think.

By: scott

scott — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 17:36:03 +0000

Susan: I’d not heard about the Rabbit Ears thing, but have put in my 2 cents worth now. I’m not 100% sure whether I’d fancy them myself, but would certainly try them. Thanks for that info!

By: Susan

Susan — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:32:51 +0000

If we are going to choose to eat meat, I think it best to utilize as much of the animal as possible so that the animal’s death will not have been in half-hearted vain. Having said that, one man’s meat, is another’s taboo. There’s quite a food fight on another blog over rabbit ears. You may have already seen it or weighed in. I just left the site reeling. Talk about tripping wires. I like an animated discussion and debate, but for the most part this was a powder keg.

By: scott

scott — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 13:58:27 +0000

Mae: Great, it would be lovely to see how it works out for you. Feel free to vary the ingredients however you see fit – add your own identity to it.

By: Mae

Mae — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 09:23:58 +0000

Scott, well said. I agree with you completely.

I like a bowl of oxtail soup occasionally but never attempted to make it from scratch. When i lived in Kingston, Surrey, just over the bridge towards Hampton Court, there was a bakery which sold home-made oxtail soup. I can still remember to this day how good it tasted. I was one of their regulars.

There is a Filipino recipe that uses oxtail too called Kare-Kare. Which, i’ve been meaning to cook for ages and ages. I’ll add your recipe to my to do list.