Oxtail soup

Tis the time of year for soup. I’m not usually a huge soup person, especially during the summer months; I’m more a solid food kind of girl, with the emphasis on chewing. Makes me feel like I’ve worked for it – pureed food just seems too easy.


I get lazy in winter, and I think it’s a fabulous time of year to get cosy under a thick tartan blanket on an armchair of epic proportions, with the lights down low and a good film on the telly. There’s really nothing better to get me in that snuggly frame of mind than a nice bowl of steaming hot soup and some crusty bread. My favourite at the moment is Falko’s spelt and honey (dinkelbrot mit honig), which is amaaazing. It may be the best bread I have ever tasted, and I buy it every weekend at the farmers market. And as far as the soup element is concerned, nothing beats homemade.


My lovely boy made a version of oxtail soup over the weekend; it is gorgeous, but quite different from any other oxtail soup, I promise!


Hearty oxtail soup


1.5 kg oxtail
1 bottle Madeira wine, medium dry
Flour
500 ml beef stock
3-5 onions, chopped
Carrots, chopped
Romanesco, in florets
Brussels sprouts, halved
20 cherry tomatoes


Dust the oxtail with flour, then brown in some oil (we use Summer Harvest rapeseed oil) in a heavy, lidded casserole dish. Remove the meat and set aside. Add the onions and sauté – you might need to add some more oil at this point. When the onions have softened, return the oxtail to the pot; now is the time to add the whole bottle of Madeira. Cook it all down for about 15-20 minutes before adding the beef stock. Season. Simmer over a very low heat for a very long time; my boyfriend cooked this soup over a period of 5 hours, but you could probably get away with a couple hours.


Meanwhile, in a separate pot of salted water, blanch the vegetables. You can add as many or as few vegetables to this as you like, but we used a couple large carrots, half a huge head of romanesco, and about 10-12 sprouts. Drain.


Once the soup has sat simmering for what seems like forever, and you can no longer remember a time when you did not have soup simmering on the hob, remove the oxtail from the broth.


Set the meat aside and add the drained vegetables to the soup. Toss in the cherry tomatoes as well; there is no need to chop as the soup will cook down further;
simmer the soup with the vegetables and tomatoes for about 20 minutes, mashing the vegetables with a wooden spoon if you prefer soups with a chunkier texture, or puree with a handheld blender if you prefer something a little smoother. I personally like mine with a bit of texture, so only lightly blended it.


Now, you have one of two choices. You could shred the meat and add it to the soup, or you could leave it out altogether. We did half and half; as there is quite a lot of soup yield, we added shredded oxtail to half the batch and left it out of the other batch. It’s wonderful and yummy either way, and I can’t think of a more perfect meal on a freezing cold Edinburgh winter night.