Oxtail Noodle Soup

Here's the picture from the last post as a teaser. Well, it was sort of a tricky one since it's not duck noodles but rather stewed oxtail noodle soup with roasted duck! Surprise!!

See if I posted this picture (without the duck, of course), it would have been a dead giveaway. hehe.

A couple of weeks back, I decided to get some oxtail from 99 Ranch since they looked so good, even with the sticker shock of $3.99/lb. Sheesh. I haven't had oxtail since I was a little girl (long, long time ago in a galaxy far far away....) and since The Mister has never had oxtail soup, I thought I'd make it (it took a bit of convincing). I followed my Mom's recipe, which was from a very old Chinese cookbook. The recipe is very easy and quite good.

We had one of the eating machines over that night and since I wasn't sure I had enough oxtails for 3 people, I decided to heat up some leftover roast duck from Jasmine Seafood as a supplement. The pairing of the duck and the oxtail was really good! Baby bok choy was the choice of greens that night.

Ingredients:
2 lb oxtail
5 large slices of ginger root
2 green onions (scallions)
1 Tbsp Szechuan peppercorns (I didn't toast mine)
1 star anise
3 Tbsp cooking wine (I used Shao Xing wine) or sherry
8 C water
1 Tbsp kosher salt
Baby bok choy, quartered (I had 3 bunches per person)
1 lb of Chinese dry noodles
Water for blanching oxtail and bok choy

Garnish for each bowl:

1/2 Tbsp green onions, chopped
1 tsp soy sauce
1/4 tsp sesame oil (optional)
pepper to taste

Directions:
Fill a large pot about 2/3 with water and boil. Blanch/parboil the oxtails in boiling water for about 5 minutes. Supposedly this is to get rid some of the "stuff" that you don't want in your soup (blood, impurities, etc.). Remove the oxtail and dump the water.

In a 5 quart dutch oven or heavy pot, add ginger, 2 green onions, Szechuan peppercorns, star anise, cooking wine, 8 cups of water, kosher salt, and blanched oxtail. Bring to boil and then simmer for 2 hours until the meat is soft and the liquid has reduced down to about 6 cups. Add more salt to taste. Set aside.

In a large pot, bring 6 cups of water to boil. Blanch the bok choy until just tender. Remove. Using the same water, cook noodles according to package instructions. The ones I used call for boiling for 4 minutes.

In each bowl, add garnish ingredients. Ladle oxtail broth into each bowl. Add cooked noodles, oxtail and bok choy. And if you just so happen to have some leftover roast duck or chicken, top off with a couple of pieces to finish the dish.

Even though The Mister is not a gelatinous meat type of person, that's my department, he did enjoy his oxtail noodle soup. Eat Machine1 liked it and for once, she didn't finish everything. Those oxtails are pretty filling.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Aloha Friday and a terrific weekend!