Oxtail Soup (Sop Buntut)

What is your typical weekend lunch at home? Suddenly I had this question popped up. Coming from a real big families with 6 other siblings and few more foster brothers and sisters, weekend was always a big gathering at home. That the day when all of us returned home from our work place, from schools and be together and get loud. Of course, the most busiest person probably Mum and older sisters and the helpers. Well at least when we are all still single and lived not far from our parent's home.

And after lot of laughter and jokes and chats, moving from one room to the others, then the lunch is ready. I called this the delight of being among "the younger" children. I haven't really cooked since there are always expert to create the food, so I'd rather joined the boys clean up the garden, or painting the house, making small vegetable garden than cooking. But then after finishing college and worked in a place which take at least 4.5 hours flight from home, then this missing of my own comfort food really start to hit. Well they say nothing will happen unless you do something to make it happen, so I decided to play a bit in the kitchen, making phone calls home, asking for recipes and more recipes and more ...

So the food that I'm going to share here now is our typical weekend lunch at home. This food calls Sop Buntut. Sop as soup in english and buntut is means tail. Yes, when you mentioned buntut it literally means oxtail. So folks let's cook!

Ingredients:

2 pounds of oxtail (usually available in chunks version)
2 pcs carrots; chopped
1 stalks of Chinese celery; cut into 3 parts
4-5 cups of water

5 garlic (roasted in the oven  approximately 6-8 minutes)
1 big onion or 8 shallots (roasted in the oven  approximately 6-8 minutes)
3 cm of ginger (roasted in the oven approximately 6-8 minutes)

5 tbs vegetable oil

Spices:
1 tsp ground white pepper
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
2 tbs salt
1 pcs of star anise
1 Beef cube (optional; I don't use it)

Condiments:
- 1 stalk of Chinese celery; chopped
- 1 tomatoes; diced
- Fried shallots n garlic (available at Asian market)
-8 green Thai small chillies; ground (this is the sambal)
-1 lime' cut into four; take the juice
-krupuk emping (I don't use)

Directions:
1. Boiled the oxtail in a hot boiling water, let the water boiled again then take out the water, poured in 5 cups of water. This way the soup will have clear broth.
2. Add the spices and keep boiling in small fire till the oxtail become tender. More or less 1-1.5 hour.
3. In a wok, heat 5 tsp vegetable oil and stir in the grounded roasted ingredients (shallots, ginger and garlic), then add to the soup, add the celery and carrot. Keep boiling till the carrot is well cooked (not too tender)
4. Add water if necessary and add the sallt.
5. Serve in a bowl with pieces of tomatoes, chopped celery, green sambal, krupuk and lime juice.