Easy Sop Buntut - Indonesian Ox Tail Soup

I can't believe what just happened!!!
All the crap I've been typing for several hours has gone!

I was having one of those really uninspired days, where my mind goes blank and believe it or not, I almost started by writing a couple sad versions of "What does one write when one has nothing to write? Writing about having nothing to write?"...then thought better of it and wrote paragraphs after paragraphs on how I grew up with sop (soup) back home in Indonesia. Yawn.
It was pure crap.

I guess the universe didn't want me to inflict such a lethally boring article to my readers' soul (who are probably bored to the bone at work, or at home, refreshing their Facebook or Twitter pages every few seconds, seeing one boring update after another, or even none), so when I clicked "Publish", I was faced by the feared "Page cannot be displayed" error message.

I always pride myself of being the "click-save-after-every-little-update" girl, I thought I would never be those who lose an unpublished draft, no matter how painfully boring it was. I was (again) wrong. I lost that boring draft. Thank God.

What the heck did I wrote?

"I didn't like sop then, but now I do."
Imagine that sentence being stretched into a 2,000 word article. Yawn. A long yawn.

But, oh dammit, I lost the recipe draft too!

Easy Sop Buntut - Indonesian Ox Tail Soup

Recipe
- 1 lb ox tail (chopped into chunks)
- 1 large onion, chopped into chunks, or 6 shallots
- 1 carrot, peeled and chopped into bite sized chunks
- 1 cup straw mushrooms (totally optional, you can also use potatoes)
- 2 cups of chicken stock (or use powder/cube)
- olive oil, hot water, salt, pepper, nutmeg (use quite a lot of it, it's the dominant spice in this dish)
- 1 sprig of spring onion, chopped (garnish)
- crispy shallot (garnish)
- juice of 1 lime (garnish)

I used pressure cooker to dramatically reduce the cooking time. Of course, it also works without a pressure cooker, it should taste even better.

Saute onion/shallot in olive oil, add ox tail pieces, brown them a bit, add carrot chunks, potatoes (if using), add chicken stock (add water if you want more soup), add salt, pepper, nutmeg, cook in pressure cooker for 25 minutes. If you're not using a pressure cooker, bring to boil and cook until meat is tender, at least 1.5 hours, the longer the better. Once the meat is tender, add mushrooms (if using), adjust seasoning, garnish with spring onion and crispy shallot, squeeze juice of 1 lime. Serve hot with steamed rice and you can do perkedel (Indonesian fried potato cakes) as a side dish.


Don't let the clean and clear looking broth fool you, it is bursting with flavors.

Now please please please tell me I am not the only one who's lost a boring draft? Misery loves company (Wah! How evil).