This tomato-based oxtail soup is a family tradition. It originates from the Russian-style oxtail soup from Moscow Restaurant, one of the earliest foreign restaurants in Beijing. Opened in 1954, its French-influenced Russian food was the only Western food known to local people, and was unimaginably expensive. Only a small circle of elites could afford it: in the late 70s, it cost around an eighth to a tenth of a person’s monthly income to have dinner there. When I was a kid, before McDonald’s and KFC opened up their chains, my parents introduced “Western” food to me and took me to enjoy the food at Moscow Restaurant a few times a year. Just like homemade noodles and fried rice, the Russian-style oxtail soup is such a comfort food for me. I still cook it every winter since moving to Austin, Texas, despite the fact that winter here doesn’t last more than 2 months and the temperature rarely drops under 50 F!
My mom created this oxtail soup recipe with slight alterations. She skipped the beetroot in the traditional borscht because it’s quite difficult to find in Beijing. Extra ginger was added to bring out the aroma from the beef. When I started making this dish in the US, I made a few more tweaks influenced by French cuisine by sautéeing the vegetables and using canned tomatoes. So here it is: a traditional Russian-style oxtail soup localized in China, then reinterpreted and transformed by two generations.
Cooking notes
(1) It’s totally OK to cook without using a pressure cooker, but adds 2-3 hours of cooking time. Just follow the recipe below and keep simmering the oxtail until the meat becomes super tender, then proceed to step 4. (2) Use water or beef broth? Back in Beijing, my mom always used water to make the beef stock from scratch. However, you can use beef broth in this recipe and yield a richer soup in less time. (3) You can use half oxtail and half beef brisket if you want your soup to be meatier. (4) If cooking without a pressure cooker, you can skip the sautéeing of the onions and carrots. Add them directly into the broth to simmer, because slowly simmering the beef broth in this way instead of using a pressure cooker will yield a richer, more flavorful soup. (5) Why oxtail? Because the cut contains perfect amount of bone, bone marrow, connective tissue, lean meat and fat. It makes the soup sumptuously rich, the meat will become tender as butter and stay juicy after hours of simmering.
That’s it for the day! I hope you enjoy the dish, and remember to keep warm! 🙂 Need more comforting soup? Check out classic egg drop soup, hot and sour soup, and napa cabbage and meatball soup. My family serves these dishes almost daily during winter! If you give this recipe a try, let us know! Leave a comment, rate it (once you’ve tried it), take a picture and tag it @omnivorescookbook on Instagram! I’d be thrilled to see what you come up with.
