oxtail and pork ribs soup
with tangy lime and chilli sauce
Oxtail and pork ribs soup with tangy lime and chilli sauce
Serve: ~6
Ingredients:
Soup
800g veal or beef oxtail
500g pork ribs
2 red tomatoes
1/2 white onion
1/2 mooli
3 garlic cloves
3 bok choy
1 bunch of spring onions + some for serving
40g fresh coriander + some for serving
3 bird’s eye chillis
1 lime
30g fish sauce
2,2 litres of cold water
sea salt
black pepper
vegetable oil
Sauce
1 garlic clove
6 bird’s eye chillis
10g caster sugar
10g coriander roots
100g lime juice (~3 limes)
100g fish sauce
Method:
Meat
Heat up vegetable oil in a large pot. Once the oil reaches its sizzling point, place the meat and half a white onion to fill the pot (all pieces should touch the bottom of the pot, so you will need to do this in batches) and sear all the sides over medium to high heat to guarantee uniform browning. Searing one batch of meat should take around 10 minutes. The meat's brown colour will impart a deeper flavour to the soup.
Prep vegetables
Tear off individual leaves from the pak choy stalk. If the leaves are quite big, cut them in half, if not, leave them as they are.
As shown below, cut the tomatoes into wedges, leaving the skin on. Chop the mooli into big rectangular chunks. Slice the spring onions and coriander into 5cm strips (leave some for serving). Juice one lime. Mince garlic and slice off the chilli’s stems.
Add mooli, tomatoes, chilli, and minced garlic to the meat. Refill the pot with cold water covering all the ingredients.
Bring the pot to a boil, and skim off any impurities that accumulate on the surface using a spoon. Turn the heat on low and simmer the soup with a lid on for about 2 hours or until the meat falls off the bone. Season with salt, black pepper and fish sauce.
Once the meat becomes tender, add the remaining ingredients - pak choy, coriander and spring onions and cook for another 5 minutes. Squeeze lime juice to add a touch of brightness and balance the savoury flavours.
Taste and adjust the seasoning with more fish sauce or salt.
Sauce
Mortar and pestle method
Cut the bird’s eye chillis and coriander roots into small pieces.
Lay a silicone mat underneath a mortar. Place the chillis, white sugar and garlic clove in a mortar.
Start pounding the ingredients applying pressure until you achieve a coarse paste (check the photo below). While you pound, the ingredients might move to the sides, scrape them off with a pestle and pound again.
Add coriander roots and crush them. Once pounded, add lime juice and fish sauce and combine.
Check the flavour and adjust it to your liking.
If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, toss all the ingredients into a food processor and blitz until a coarse consistency is achieved. Note that while this method is convenient, the resulting flavour profile may not be as good as in the pounded version.
Serving
Slice spring onions and pick coriander leaves.
Ladle the hot soup into a bowl and top it with fresh coriander and spring onion. Serve with the tangy sauce and jasmine rice on the side.
