I usually cook this a day before. I will pack the oxtail, carrots and potatoes and the soup in seperate container. The soup, I will filter it before I keep it in the fridge.

On the next day, I will remove the layer of oil from the soup before throwing everything into the pot and warm up again.

It’s quite a long process of prep and cooking for this dish. But it’s worth it! The clear soup is flavourful yet light and definitely warms any heart. Let’s start cooking!

Serves: 8

Ingredients

– 1 kilogram (2 lb) oxtail (Indonesian: buntut sapi)
– 3 liter water
– 2 tablespoon oil
– 1 cinnamon stick
– 5 cloves
– 1 teaspoon nutmeg
– 300 gram carrot, peeled and cut into 1 inch rounds
– 250 gram potato (around 2 potatoes), peeled and cut into 8 wedges per potato
– 1 tablespoon salt
– 1/2 tablespoon sugar
– 1 teaspoon ground white pepper

Grind the following into spice paste
– 100 gram shallots
– 5 cloves garlic
– 1 inch ginger
– 1/2 large onion (150 gram/5 oz)

Garnish and accompaniments
– 1 tomato, cut into small slices
– 1 scallion, thinly sliced
– 2 Chinese celery, thinly sliced
– 1 lime, cut into wedges
– deep-fried shallot flakes

Chili sauce (mixed the following)
– 4 tablespoon sweet soy sauce (Indonesian: kecap manis)
– 4 bird-eye chilies, seeded and thinly sliced

Instructions

1. Brown the oxtail in the soup pot.

2. After that, Boil oxtails and water in the same soup pot, then simmer until the meat is tender. This usually takes about 2 hours.

3. Remove oxtails from the stock and set aside. Strain the stock to get a clear broth. Return the broth and oxtails back to the pot.

4. In a frying pan, heat oil and sauté spice paste, cinnamon stick, cloves, and nutmeg until fragrant. About 5 minutes. Add this to the pot with broth and oxtails.

5. Bring the oxtail and broth back to a boil. Add carrot and potato and season with salt, sugar, and ground white pepper. Reduce heat and cook until carrot and potato are cooked and tender, but still quite firm. About 20 minutes. Adjust salt and sugar as needed.

6. Turn off heat, serve the soup with slices of tomato, scallion, and Chinese celery. Sprinkle the soup with some deep-fried shallot flakes. The soup is best eaten when still piping hot with a bowl of steamed white rice accompanied with the chili sauce and a squeeze of lime juice.