Oxtail Soup (bone "healing" part 4) 牛尾汤

It has been more than eight weeks since my right elbow was fractured. It usually takes more than a month (sometimes up to 3-4 months, depending on severity) to completely heal the fractured bones, including injured (broken) tendons, cartilage, soft tissues, biceps, triceps, muscles.

To help myself heal faster and speed up recovery, I have been cooking bone broth at least once a week during the initial stages of recovery and to-date, I have cooked bone broth with pork bones once, beef bones twice, and chicken bones many times.

You can say I am desperate to heal!


This is my first time cooking oxtail and for similar reasons, the purpose is to drink up the "collagen" and minerals (calcium, iron, etc.) that hopefully helps me heal faster. Why did I choose oxtail? It can be beef shanks, other bone parts too.

Oxtail is bony and gelatinous too, and usually takes a long time to cook till fork-tender. If it means requiring a relatively longer duration to cook, it also means they contain more connective tissues, muscle fibers and collagen. These days, I am super sensitive to such words related to the bone. :D

Since it is a first time for me, I reckon the most idiot-proof way is to stove-cook the oxtail with gentle heat over a long duration (at least 3 hours); and with the most basic and common root vegetables such as onions, carrots, and celery to flavor up this Oxtail Soup. Surely, it won't fail me?


and it did not.

A basic delicious Oxtail Soup starts with 4-5 pieces of oxtail; 3-4 stalks of celery; 2 carrots; 1/2 onions (rough chop the celery, carrots, and onions); some ginger; 1 tomato, chopped to 4 wedges; pinch of turmeric and pinch of fennel seeds; salt and pepper to taste PLUS time (at least 3 hours!).

Bring the oxtail to a boil with some ginger and when boiling, remove the scum from the surface. Then add all the root vegetables - celery, carrots, and onions, and more ginger, add the turmeric, fennel seeds, and allow it to come to a boil again. When starting to boil, add the tomatoes, reduce the heat and simmer on low heat for about 3 hours (cooking time reduced if using pressure cooker) till the meat on the oxtail bone become fork-tender.



To make it a one-dish meal, I ladle the soup over cooked macaroni.

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Also sharing this oxtail soup dish with Souper Sunday


I have in fact reduced my intake of red meat some time ago but I think soup cooked with meat (and red meat) is ok, right? LOL.

The consumption of more "liquid" (soup, in this case) that contains collagen, iron and other minerals also better the blood flow and circulation within the body, esp. the elbow bones which in fact might be the hardest to heal when it is injured due to the relatively limited number of blood vessels (thus supply of blood) surrounding the elbow.

Sicko me!

Chinese call it 走火入魔！


Tag: oxtail soup, oxtail soup

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